"A Sense of Place"

And God said, 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.' And it was so. God called the dry ground 'land,' and the gathered waters he called 'seas'" (Genesis 1:9).

I was able to grow exponentially in my photoshop skills through this project. Each photo represents a different part of my roots and "sense of place." When I think of “place,” I am reminded both of my chilly Minnesota roots and our family’s passion for traveling to warmer destinations. I wanted to convey the juxtaposition between warmth and cold through my first series of photoshopped images. For the next series, I sought to combine different cameras with elements like city life, a child on a slide, and long shadow people. Finally, my last photos combine collage with photographic cubism. Check out my full artist's statement here.

One Step Away

I used the gradient tool in Adobe Photoshop to paint Turks and Caicos (view from my plane window) to frozen Lake Michigan, as my friend Millie appears to be stepping into these surreal waters.

Frozen Cacti

I channeled my inner surrealist through combining Minnesota ice castle spikes with pokey Arizona cacti. The gradient tool in Adobe Photoshop came in handy again, and I color graded both images (increasing warm or cool tones) to make the differences in temperature more exaggerated.

Parad-Ice

Using the gradient and paint tools in Adobe Photoshop, I blended a Minnesota hockey player with a Turks & Caicos beach in the sky. Below his skates are icy clouds, achieved through painting and decreasing the transparency of a Minnesota ice castle.

Shadowed Selfie

This piece is full of nostalgia, as I used a layer mask in Adobe Photoshop to blend an image from my middle school theatre class onto a friend's iPhone. This juxtaposition of the present and past represents how Orono Middle School has shaped us, and emphasizes the importance of looking back at prior educational memories.

Sunset City Life

Using the same Adobe Photoshop technique as above, I blended a Minnesota sunset onto the Chicago skyline. I also used a layer mask to insert a photo I took during a rainy day in Chicago onto my friend's iPhone. Together, all these elements achieve visual continuity and a surrealist style.

Sliding into Nature

My favorite piece from this series shows my nanny kid, Hawthorne, sliding out of my GAF SLR camera. In order to create visual continuity, I found this image with a green slide in my camera roll to match the green leaves around the camera. I also used a layer mask in Adobe Photoshop to cut out the lens and pull the slide out of it.

Rock-a-bye Baby

My next series creates time montages through collage. I sought to inspire nostalgia of the maturing of my younger brother, Grant. I used the layer mask and paint tool in Adobe Photoshop to cut out the images, reduce the transparency, and paste them onto the rocks. Each image was taken at a different stage of his life and core memory in his childhood.

Dad-tastic

For my dad, I chose pictures that conveyed his personality well and arched them over his pensive shadow. Similar to Grant's collage above, each image represents a core memory for our family, and displays his role as a loving father. I also used the same techniques as above, employing Adobe Photoshop's layer mask, transparency, and paint tools.

Pieces of Chicago

Finally, I tried my hand at photographic cubism. I really enjoyed piecing together different images from the same photo, and did so while maintaining a square or rectangle frame. My expansive Chicago content bank came in handy, and I stitched together people, vehicles, water, concrete, and all other things that make this city my new home. The Adobe Photoshop tools I used were layer masks, transparency, paint, blend, filters, cut out background tools, and gradient tool.

Chicago Patchwork

I copied the style and Adobe Photoshop techniques from "Pieces of Chicago" to create this piece. Each puzzle piece is from a different time/day in Chicago, but together they create a uniform look that captures the vibrancy of the "Windy City."

Note: This piece was featured in the fall 2025 edition of Kodon, Wheaton College's literary and art journal.