Sentimental: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Mackenzie Bystrom (2017)

I am exploring the feeling of surprise through the experience of cooking. In my photograph, I present a frying pan with sand, seashells, and driftwood inside of it sitting on some logs in a fire pit outdoors. The pale sand mixed with the sea debris, which is mostly blueish in hue, gives off a cool feeling, similar to the breeze that comes from the ocean. This, contrasted with the naturally warm tone of the logs, shows that there’s some sort of disordinance between the subject and its setting, showing that it’s out of place. I decided it would be best for there not to be an actual fire burning for two main reasons: One being that it would be hard to capture the lighting it would cause, and the other being that I feel the implication of lingering is powerful; Just as one can smell the smoke long after a fire has been put out, memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, affect people for their entire lives.

The subject of the sea creatures in the pan on a fire pit represents how one thing can bring back memories of something seemingly unrelated: for example, sitting in a backyard and cooking things around a fire, and a visit to the beach. The contrast between cool and warm colors displays the dissonance between the present times and one’s memories, and how current experiences can make one sentimental for the past. This can lead to the feeling of surprise, and how cooking may be the thing that brings back unexpected memories. Olfactory senses are surprisingly powerful in terms of memory making and associations, so a variety of smells can lead to different memories where one experienced the smell before. In photoshop, I made the background a warmer hue, and selected the subject to make it a cooler hue. I wanted to emphasize the contrast between the subject and its setting to show how out of place, and in a way, surprising, it is. During this process I learned more about how to make subtle color changes rather than changes too dramatic for my purpose. I specifically edited the hue and brightness so that the subject would stand out more and feel slightly out of place. This would give the contents in the pan a more surprising feeling, rather than it blending into the background.