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Warmth: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Tanshi Mohan (2017)

I am exploring the feeling of adoration through the experience of swimming.

The main objects in my photograph are candles, rocks, and a stream. Using leading lines, I placed the candles in a way so that the viewer's eye moves down the picture, similarly to how someone would swim down a stream. I took the picture from ground level, at an angle to capture the reflection of the fire on the stream, and to place the middle candle on one of the “rule of thirds” lines. The light used in this picture is natural lighting excluding the light that the candle gave off. I did not add any artificial light to give the picture a more natural aesthetic.

When I first got my concept statement, I could not directly relate a feeling of love or adoration towards swimming. So instead, I considered it from a swimmer’s point of view. The water and the rocks represent swimming. The rocks are meant to depict the physical challenge that swimmers, who adore the activity, have to overcome. The ripples in the water are an aspect of swimming as movement. I chose candles to symbolize the idea of adoration because of the feeling of warmth connected to both adoration and candles. The reflection of the light on the water is representative of the two ideas, adoration and swimming, overlapping one another. More specifically, the way the light reflects in distorted lines (due to the ripples in water), further brings the two ideas together.

For my Photoshop editing process, I started by brightening the picture because it was underexposed. I then added a blue tint using the temperature bar, to refer to colors that imply swimming, and to contrast against the warm colors emitted from the candles. From there, I used the Burn Tool and Sharpen Tool to help darken and sharpen some of the edges of the candles and their flames,since the flames were hard to capture completely still. I also used the Dodge tool to help illuminate the flame on the candle and its reflection in the water.
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