Let Freedom Ring: Photoshop Project

I started this image with the American flag as a foundation. I did this because I wanted to have the focus of this image be about the first amendment and so I used the flag as a symbol for our country. Then I put a picture of Julian Assange In the upper left hand corner, I picked one of him looking high and mighty because the people who comment on Wikileak's facebook page love Julian for founding Wikileaks and revealing all of these documents. I also put him up there so it would resemble him almost as god looking down on the people.

Next I added “we the people” and feathered the edge to make it blend well and to make the sharpness of Julian still stand out. I then added the scroll and feathers to help tie in the “we the people”, sort of constitution look. It is also a symbol of how times have changed, from writing with a feather and ink well on a scroll, to the viewing and discussing the endless documents that Julian gave us access to. There is a facebook image with some people from facebook that I placed under the “we the people”, this is to help say that the people of our country can express themselves and discuss Wikileaks on facebook.

Then I have the people talking with duck tape on their mouths, I did not place the duck tape to say that they are not allowed to talk about Wikileaks, I placed it there to say if the government is going to go against freedom of press, then what's to say they wont take away freedom of speech too? Lastly I put the handcuffs on Julian Assange, this is to show that he has the freedom of press, but they still want to stop him, and it could come to the extreme of locking him up for doing nothing wrong.

I wrote freedom of speech under the people with duck tape on their mouths and freedom of press above Julian to add the dramatic quality that this image portrays. Then finally I wrote let freedom ring, to add a sarcastic and almost mocking tone to the picture, I feel like I was able to convey the more vivid and powerful tone I wanted for my image, then I could have shown through my text. This is mostly because it is condensed into one moment when you look at the image and kind of have that "Whoa" feeling that couldn't be achieved with a text. But on the contrary, with a text I feel like the reader gets the idea better because it can’t be taken the wrong way, which is possible with images.

Words and images defiantly stimulate different parts of the brain; personally I think that an image stimulates the creative part of your brain while text stimulates the intellectual side, for the most part. Therefore when an image and text are in combination it energizes the brain so much and makes for a stronger message.