Fading Into Reality: A Senior Surreal Photo by Annamari Jaaksi (2014)

In my piece Fading Into Reality, a hand is erasing a drawing of a flower. However, the parts the hand erases turn into a real flower. The drawing of the stem is slowly morphing into a bright red flower. I used Photoshop to put together three different pictures, which create this piece. The first picture was a HDR picture of a flowerbed. I used the pen tool in Photoshop to select the red flower, and moved it onto the picture of the hands and the drawing. I then added the photo frame, and edited it to be green. Finally, I added a leather texture to the hands and a simple but fascinating background to the paper and the wall to add visual interest.

Fading Into Reality was based on a surrealist game called New Myths. The piece shows how, when a drawing is erased, it doesn't actually disappear. Instead, it becomes a real 3D object. I chose the complementary color scheme because the red flower and green picture frame are very vibrant compared to the light 2D drawing. In addition, the flower itself represents life and beauty. This all shows how things we think are gone, like old drawings, might be more alive than ever - they're just somewhere else.