Mini project one consisted of making a collage with a variety of pictures selected from the AP Images database. All in all, it was a pretty simple assignment.
However, I found myself doing something that I think is significant and important to the class: attempting to create a narrative with my collage.
I was interested in migrants from Mexico to the U.S. initially, but after searching "Migrants" in the database I found lots of pictures of migrants from all over the world, and why not include them as well? So I attempted to tell the story of a world full of migrants with my collage. It's a bit of an abstract story. Perhaps it would be hard to see the progression. I told it through the layout of the collage.
So there's my final project. Eight pictures of different migrants trying to live their best life. I liked the idea of "FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT," as it says on the banner in the top left image. I took inspiration from that to try to tell the story not of people who have found themselves in very unfortunate circumstances, but of people who are using their legs to get them somewhere better than they were before. Sure they may suffer, but they are free.
After the "FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT" image I wanted to show such movement. As it turns out, there are a variety of ways for people to get around. Each image of people migrating is from a different country and showcases a different method of travel: by train, by taxi, by boat, and by legs.
Finally, I wanted to portray life after migration. People simply living their lives to the best of their abilities, even if they have ended up in a city of tents. So that's where the collage ends, but it's not where their story ends and I hope that is also evident in my work.
To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting to get anything out of this project. I thought I would be throwing pictures on a page and calling it a day, but I realized that there can be a purpose behind everything and images can tell a powerful story.
I have never really considered the implications of including an image in writing.
On the first day of class we looked at some abstract images that really caught our eye. Here is the one I chose:
It took me a good minute to figure out why I was so mesmerized by it. It is hard to look away from. (Even as I am writing this I am having a hard time concentrating on my typing because the image is so distracting). I think the feature that initially caught my eye was the contrast. Parts of the image are so bright they are almost white and other parts are so dark they are almost black.
More importantly, however, this image not only caught my eye but didn't let it stray to another image. The illustration so clearly contains layer after layer after layer after layer of color and dimension. It seems to go on for miles despite being 2D. You have to wonder what is hiding behind so many layers.
At first I thought it looked like space, but, of course, it is an abstract image and it is of nothing in particular. So the longer I looked at it, the more things I saw in it. It looked like a mountain with the sun rising behind it. It looked like an angry and stormy sea.
I see how powerful a good image can be and how it can impact something. I have always considered writing to be words on a page, but one week in Multimedia Authoring as well as a Digital Creative Writing course, I have come to see that writing can be much more than words. Including media such as images in my writing can really help evoke the emotion I want to.
Images are powerful and beautiful. I have always respected that, but I also have always considered them to be a very separate art form from writing. Perhaps combining the two can create the most powerful art of all.
