Art by Laurel

The first photo came from one of many parkway drives in Boone - imagine Frank Ocean playing, the windows all the way down, a car full of friends and laughter. The texture comes from my best friend Hannah's doodles, inspired by a recent break-up and Eat Pray Love. The second photo came from when I lived in Chapel Hill, and on a particularly sad day decided to ditch everything and drive until I found somewhere beautiful. I came upon Lake Jordan in literally the middle of nowhere, which brought all the peace I needed. Overtop, another Hannah doodle- love is everything. The third photo was on a trip to Asheville, when I came upon a man who was sitting and writing poems for anyone who wanted one, about anything. I had him write me a poem about coincidences, which is what I used for texture. The poem and the moment was beautiful. To make all of these images, I basically just rotated every texture piece, cropped both the images together to make it fit, played with the opacity ...

In contemporary times, everyone uses some type of Photoshop in one way or another. Whether it's adding a filter, creating something that couldn't exist otherwise, or just removing a blemish, everyone is guilty of touching up an imagine one way or another. While image retouching is seemingly harmless, I can see how it can become problematic at times. The unceasing editing of the bodies of already thin models can subconsciously promote body image issues, insecurity, and a wack view of beauty standards. While an explicit note that Photoshop was used on an image can be helpful, it seems somewhat overkill when it's pretty common sense advertisements and practically every image you see has been edited in some way or another. Living in an increasingly technological world, Photoshop and digital retouching is only getting more popular. Above all, Photoshop is a type of artform and labels or warnings only seem to stifle the message.