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Untitled: A Senior Listener Lyric Photographic Diptych by Emily Cook (2017)

My lyrical essay takes the perspective of a Mormon person living in Silicon Valley and the stereotypes associated with their faith. While my subject doesn’t hate having to explain their views to everyone, I learned that it gets tiring to have to do it so often.

My lyrical essay is written as a series of anecdotal incidents in the narrator’s life about having to deal with these misconceptions and how it’s “not a big deal” no matter how often they have to explain themselves. I chose part of the first verse of the essay for the photography because it sums up the narrator’s situation – while they’re largely similar to their peers, their religion causes them to be seen as an “other” by their acquaintances. So while touring colleges in the Pacific Northwest I took photos of students on college campuses to find photos that illustrated this dichotomy.

To edit my photo, I imported it into Photoshop where I adjusted the colors before making it black-and-white. I then used a selection on the skirt in order to add a light purple tint. I then brought the photo into Illustrator and outlined the two girls before using the text tool to place the text inside their outlines. I then exported this file and placed it into a Photoshop document alongside the photo.
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