My image manipulation is a critique of the oblivion to tragedies brought about by the fast-paced contemporary life.
The original iconic image is of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy being washed ashore after he and his family drowned while fleeing the war that was engulfing their country. The image, captured by Turkish photojournalist Nilüfer Demir, led to European countries opening closed doors for refugees and consequently became the most influential story of 2015.
The background of the manipulation is a photo depicting a crosswalk in New York City, a city that is quite the literal embodiment of the modern, fast-paced life. This photo of people hurriedly crossing the street to carry on with their day perfectly captures the current state of humanity where everybody is always just a little too busy living their own life to care about much else.
Within the photoshopped picture, even though it is manipulated, I wanted to include the puddle in which the boy lies to still carry the original story of the image in a way. Another two significant alterations I made consist of lowering the overall saturation and adding noise; both of which aim to set a tone for the image, giving it a chilling effect.
Altogether, these components create a manipulated image that encompasses the modern life and how it drove and is still driving its inhabitants into oblivion of their surroundings. People, myself included, are too occupied with their own problems that we would often choose to ignore the tragedies that are happening to others. We would walk by them, scroll by them because they do not concern us; every time we do that, our humanity is washed away little by little, and by the time we realize, it will all be too late.
Days Like This 