A small step in the right direction
It’s been just over a year since I graduated from high school and my life has gone a completely different direction than I ever planned. I am super excited to be taking a break beginning this fall to serve a full time mission for the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When I return from my mission, I will continue my education at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. This summer is my last semester at the University of Florida and I am enrolled in a Digital Imaging class. My latest project received high remarks from my professor and classmates so I wanted to share it with you guys. To begin, we were taken to a nature preserve on campus and instructed to make our perception of nature into 2 images. As I prepare for my mission, I often find myself taking time to enjoy the summer sunshine and study my scriptures outside. I have always loved how the sun “lights up” the leaves on trees throughout the day. So for this project I tried to explore why I loved this small part of nature so much.
Both of the images are much more conceptual and abstract compared to images that we are used to viewing on a day to day basis. I used photographic paper (camera-less photography) to create the images because it is the light that develops the picture. In the images, the sunlight represents Jesus Christ. In the picture on the top, there are 12 single leaves and 12 branches of leaves surrounding the sunlight in a perfect circle to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. It is prophesied that the 12 tribes will reunite in the last days of the Second coming of Jesus Christ. They reunite in a perfect circle, representing how perfect our Heavenly Father is. I created the image on the left using the same process but with Spanish moss instead. Spanish moss has always been interesting to me because it starts small on a tree and will slowly take over the entire tree and until it dies. Then the moss dies too. In regards to this project, I thought moss was a good representation of how sin works. It starts slowly and can take over throughout time. Also, when the moss was removed, the light continued to develop the image until the marks left. Similar to how when we repent and choose to let Jesus Christ work in our lives, the scars of sin will begin to erase.
This was my inspiration and intent with this piece and I hope that each viewer can draw their own interpretation. I want to continue using photographic paper to build on this idea in future projects and try to capture experiences throughout my mission. I hope to make a bigger project when I return home. Let me know what you think -xoxoxo- alora
sunlight "lighting up" the leaves ↓
