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Black and White Citizen Photo: A Senior Listener Lyric Photographic Diptych by Bija Haxhicani (2019)

My lyrical essay “The Bench of Two Different Worlds” represents what it is like for an African American teenage girl to accept her identity while being made apparent the negative barriers and differences her culture has from others in this society. I learned from my interview subject that this situation creates division between her desire and identity.

The photo I chose to exemplify my passage was a woman carrying her child on her shoulders. This photo for me has important value because it not only is beautiful in the connection represented by the support the mother gives to their child, yet it also shows a very tall figure. With my chosen quote being “But you let the thoughts fly high like a balloon to disperse into space and never be recognized again,” I felt that having a tall figure showcasing the quote would allow the viewer to appreciate the relation with the thoughts flying high through the body to the sky. With the way the figure is positioned in the photo, it appears that she is almost as tall as the sky. With the connection between the mother and her child on her shoulders, I believed it could relate to how there are many thoughts or emotions that families of African American background go through especially around prejudice and discrimination. As these thoughts and emotions continue for generations, they can’t allow it impact who they.

To create this piece, at first I had to choose my photo and edit it with Adobe Photoshop to make it black and white. After I edited it, I opened a new template on Adobe Photoshop and placed the image. With this template I masked out the figure in the photo that I wanted for my project and I placed in the open black space next to its original black and white photo. I placed it in the position and size I wanted on the photo and then using typography and converting the text to shape, I placed my quote inside the figure. The font I used was traditional typewriter text, the font prejudice signs or posters were made with in the past. Related website
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