This is a combination of one of the most famous photos of all time, Earthrise by NASA, and a soccer ball image I pulled from Target’s website. I knew very quickly that I wanted to use this specific space photo. I have been a huge space geek for years, and this photo has been my background/profile picture on many different devices and accounts. What I spent most of my time on was deciding on what spherical object to replace the Earth with. My first idea was to make some “deep” and “original” message by imposing a spherical ball of trash, but that felt really basic. I have played soccer for the past 16 years of my life however, so it didn’t take me too long.
The process of editing was very simple. Actually too simple. Once I put the image in place I decided to add some shadow to the ball. But even then it still felt kinda off and too unnatural and easy, so I made the image slightly translucent which let some Earth texture in. Even though it’s not exactly following the assignment, it made the image much more pleasant to look at.
What I’m realizing now is that this assignment was too easy. There was too much freedom and too many options. I didn’t really like that though. My main frustration was trying to come up with something original among the generic and unlimited ideas easily accessible from the toolbox of the internet. Nevertheless… I made something. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but I can at least say I’m glad I didn’t settle for the most basic version…
Isaac Gazmararian 