Ink: A Senior Surreal Photo by Stephen Song (2013)

Did you know that printer ink is, by weight, one of the most expensive substances in the world? Back a few centuries ago, there were no printers. There were quills. People used things like squids and other dead things to make ink. Ink. Ink is everything. Ink is what makes up your printed documents, your sheets of music, your sappy handwritten letters, and your signatures on those really-super-duper-important-urgent documents. What would our world be without ink? How could we record history without something so permanent like ink? Things like graphite are temporary; there are erasers and enemies of graphite. Ink is something that stains. Ink leaves an impression forever. For centuries. So everlasting that, you'd be willing to put it inside your skin. How could you deal with something being printed on you forever? Isn't it a whole lot of responsibility? Isn't ink a whole lot of responsibility? Ingredients: Photoshop, Photography. Caution: may contain traces of frustration. Through the usage of HDR photography, I was able to obtain that dark, painterly texture that would bring surreal concepts to life. I also incorporated other images such as cracked paint, stamps, clockwork, drains, and water to bring my creation to life. This image was printed with ink. A lot of ink.