"In another moment Alice was through the glass..."-Lewis Carroll

The title, Through the Looking Glass references Lewis Carroll’s novel of the same title, in which Alice enters a world both recognizable yet fundamentally different. Like falling through a mirror, the world runs in reverse, becoming a reality differing greatly from our own. This idea of alternate realities became the inspiration for my artwork, where I attempted to combine the past and present into a single photograph. I compiled several images of classrooms, some empty, others full of students, and experimented with different types of layers on Photoshop to create the final digital design. The colours outside the centre circle are muted, blacks, whites and browns like old photographs, rough in texture and worn by the elements of time, representing memories of a world that has faded and passed. The centre circle is portrayed in full colour, glossy and smooth, a portrait of the present day. The grays and browns of the outside circle contrast with the brighter colours of the centre circle creating an emphasis and drawing the eyes to the centre. The similar colour scheme used outside the centre circle create a sense of unity between the different layers. The use of appropriation can be found within the composition where familiar objects such as tables, chairs and children are used as a means of creative expression. When I first approached the assignment I didn’t have a particular theme in mind, only a subject matter I wanted to work with. It wasn’t until I converted the images into grayscale that I decided to explore the theme of alternate realities between the past and the present. While experimenting with different types of layers, I discovered new filters, including difference and colour dodge, and learned how to apply them to my composition to create different effects. The project did not turn out exactly how I expected because when I started I had no notion of what the end result would be. Instead, I pieced the images together along the way, changing certain aspects until I was satisfied with the end result. In the future I would like to incorporate drawings into the composition to add another element to the layered photographs.