[ENGL 527: playing with Photoshop]

I found these images via Pinterest (out of curiosity as a search sieve – they came from Tumblr an FFFFOUND!). I wanted to create something symbolic of what I am feeling at this juncture of closing in on my MA and starting my PhD – both in the clouds out of excitement for my future, but also a bit out to sea, or adrift, for leaving the comforts I have constructed for myself (with the support of others) at Eastern. Both are representative of travel or movement, flux in ebbs and flows of change. But neither are unpleasant or foreboding; the crest of the wave is small, and the cloud formation is cumulus; but the potential for a more tumultuous trajectory exists, as thunderstorms can spawn from mounting cumulus clouds and waves can build with wind. While this image represents pathos to me to in this particular event, mythos is also present, as culturally clouds and waves serve as metaphors – head in the clouds, and ebb and flow. To invoke Barthes, I believe that apart these images could represent studium, particularly in their function as metaphor for states of being that can be felt in a more general sense, but together they create punctum to me, or a more poignant combination of metaphor to represent feeling.