For my photo manipulation, I chose a photo a friend of mine took of me at the Franklin Park BLM protest in 2020. What I mainly wanted to highlight, aside from my general disdain of the police, was how they presented themselves at a peaceful protest. Thousands of people came out to march together peacefully and demonstrate an intolerance to state sanctioned murder, and these chuckleheads decided to come with giant wooden batons, obviously to hit us with if we did anything they didn’t like. I wanted them to be the focus, so I made the photo greyscale and then highlighted the officers to bring attention to their violent posturing. I also added some fun little element photos to cover their faces. I hate them, but I also believe in an individual’s right to privacy. Its important to remember that the institution is the enemy above all, some of the people in uniforms are just naive and think they’re actually helping. But my overall opinion is highlighted by the numbers 1312 at the top, another representation of ACAB.
Luckily, this was just an attempt at photo manipulation and wasn’t submitted for a grade, because boy is it a bit rough. I have no clue why I was trying to be such an edgelord early on in the semester. I think its because I look like I could be pro-police because half of my wardrobe is Harley Davidson gear, and i was adamant about letting everyone know which side of the aisle I stand on. Since then, I’ve gotten much better at selecting proper subjects for class projects and making more meaningful manipulations or changes to photos I may use.