This is street right beside my elementary school in China. Every day after school, this street would be filled with students from my school. There are so many different stores on this street, but there are two that’s deep in my mind. One is a stationery store, but they also sell other things like small toys and so many things that attracted me. The store right beside it is a bubble tea store, I love their rose bubble tea. While being a bubble tea store, they also sell savory pancakes, greasy cheap and good. It is just part of my childhood that I really can’t get out of my mind.
Original photograph taken in Flushing Queens
Process of Shadow City
Shadow City, Stephanie Geng, 2019
Shadow City is a digital collage created to illustrate my perspective of a place that I treasure. This collage was created with photographs I took when I went to Flushing, cropped and modified using Adobe Photoshop, intertwined with pieces of drawings I’ve created digitally with photoshop. To create this collage, the materials I had to work with was very important. To make sure I have what I need and want for this piece I first traveled to Flushing to gather photos of the streets of Flushing. I later selected one photo as the base and started adding different parts of other photos to create my image and memory of Flushing. This included using the lasso tool and using perspective wrap to adjust the selected areas. After finishing the background collage, I drew illustrations as bubbles to add my childhood memories and perspectives to the piece. With this piece, I wanted to illustrate the difference of perspective between the childhood me and me right now. Although both Flushing and my Childhood street gave me the same feeling when I entered Flushing, I soon realized there were very distinct differences between them. The reason that I found Flushing appealing and familiar despite the difference was due to my own personal growth. Flushing is my Shadow City but not without the perspective I have as a young adult but also the way I saw things when I was a child.
The part of my piece that I am the most proud of is the signs that I added to the background by using perspective wrap. They look very in place and realistic, creating my perspective of Flushing.
The most challenging part of creating this piece of work was going to Flushing and taking the pictures. It might seem easy but trying to stand still and find a good shot in the middle of moving crowds during a freezing day is very challenging. Although I took a generous amount of pictures, many of them still was unusable.
I learned how to use perspective wrap, how to create lighting effects by adjusting hues and brightness of selected and feathered areas, and also how to see things in different perspectives.
