Worth: A Senior Listener Lyric Photographic Diptych by Lisette Molina-Perez (2017)

My Listener Lyric titled, “Worth” describes what it is like to live amongst people who are constantly trying to change you. After interviewing people for the essay, I came to the harsh realization of how discouraging it can be to define yourself as a human being.

I chose the lines, “His words whirled around your brain like fallen leaves, like cut hair strands reminding you of who you’ve become,” in order to add to the viewers emotional connection to the image. These words can help the viewer envision the frustration of trying to be yourself in a world where you will never fit in. The image I chose connects to this idea given that the person on the image is shaded by a leaf filled tree branch. A enclosing emotion conveys how awkward it can be to constantly stand out because you don’t look the way people want you to or you don’t act feminine/masculine enough. Overall the passage I chose has a strong central message on how quickly your self expression can be suppressed by the opinions of people around you.

In order to fulfill and match the emotion I wanted to portray with the passage, I tried to create a high contrast piece. I chose to make the persons shirt a low opacity of blue because blue can connect to emotions like sadness or a feeling of depression. I used a simple yet bold font so that it wouldn’t cause a distraction and change the meaning of the passage. Warping the text onto the outline of the persons shirt that was a low opacity of blue was meant to give the viewer an idea of how one can be outcasted because of who they are.