Freestyle Academy proudly presents

A Draining Feeling: A Senior Surreal Photo by Justin Walker (2014)

For my surrealist artwork I have a deformed man standing in front of a dreary empty park swingset with dark clouds in the sky. What makes the picture unique and surreal is that the man has a rock texture wrapped around his face, and in addition to this, his eyes are blacked out. Protruding from his head where his ear would be is a valve; similarly the centerpiece of my artwork is a faucet coming out the man's face where his nose would be. All of the pictures in my artwork are HDR photos (High Dynamic Range) which to create you have to take three photos of the same objects with each photo having different lighting. When these photos are combined together in Photoshop they bring out the details of the object creating a much more detailed picture and giving the photo a more surreal feel. All of the photos were taken with a DSLR camera and all the photos and effects were created in Photoshop.

My artwork represents the enthusiasm that drains from us as we get older. The man in the foreground is being drained of enthusiasm through the faucet on his face. He is standing in front of his favorite childhood playground, but as he has aged his excitement for life has decreased. The rocky texture on the mans face also represents this ageing. The tanbark texture on the faucet represents playgrounds filled with tanbark; further continuing the theme of youth. The color scheme I used utilized a monochromatic of green with many darks shades to create a dreary feeling. I used these colors because they are associated with youth and cheerfulness, but I also dulled these colors down a bit to go with the dreary nature of the artwork.
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