SECRET GARDEN (2023)

Digital photography and post-production

Jensen Kugler

I have always been drawn to the intersection between humanity and nature. For this project, I wanted to transport the viewer into nature as I see it: inherently magical. In the first half of this series, I heightened the brightness and vibrance of my images to communicate a sense of whimsy and otherworldliness. The second half shows a shift in both color and lighting meant to reflect the danger of damaging our environment. As a whole, my series is meant to communicate that harming the Earth robs it of its magic and also threatens mankind. In other words, if you are kind to the Earth, the Earth will be kind to you, but hurting it spells disaster for everyone. 

For this project, I had the hardest time with action shots because I wanted them to feel organic and related to nature. To that end, I primarily looked for examples of movement that were happening around me as opposed to ones I staged. For my photos with shallow depth of field, I blurred greenery in the backgrounds to make the viewer feel immersed in the world of my images. My photos with large depth of field focus on shadow in order to communicate the endless depth and complexity of nature.