The Dead of Winter

Flickr

One of the many dreary winter photos

Every time I have walked outside recently, it feels dreary because there are no leaves on the trees and all of nature seems to be colorless. When I walked into the greenhouse for my botany class, however, I noticed how vibrant the plants looked even in the middle of winter. It felt like two completely contrasting things, where the greenhouse plants have no idea about the environment around them. It made me think about Bob Dylan's quote within McLuhan's book, "Something is happening, but you don't know what is it, do you Mister Jones?" There is so much change happening around the world in terms of technology that if you aren't immersed in it, you won't know what is happening and will be stuck in the past, similarly to the indoor plants not knowing what is happening outside.

I realized what I wanted to do for this project when I walked into the greenhouse and saw all of the plants baking in the sun because it reminded me of summer. When I saw the trees outside, however, it was a completely different scenario. I decided to start taking pictures of all of the plants around me, including plants in my room and trees along the street. I had so many different images that I was able to pick out the ones that I thought worked well together. I decided to edit the photos so that the green leaves on the indoor plants would be vibrant and would draw in attention while still making them look natural. I also wanted the outdoor images to look natural, but I knew they would have less color. I then created an album on Flickr and placed the images in a randomized order, The album feature in Flickr allowed me to place the indoor and outdoor images next to one another, which showcased the clear difference between the environments.