Author: Giuliana Bravo

Portrait of a Place

“My favorite place”

Spring 2025

Audacity

I decided to capture a day spent locked away in my room composing. I wanted to highlight the little things I usually try to avoid while recording—like the city noise, the squeaky chair, the clicking of mouse and keyboard, the metronome ticking, and the brush of the microphone. It starts with the sound of the guitar being tuned and a door closing, marking the moment I shut myself off from the world. Then, you’ll hear the sound of a pencil on paper, the way I prefer to write lyrics. The song playing is a draft of one of my own, which I’ve chopped up to mimic the process of adding and removing effects as I edit the demo. Welcome to my favorite place in the world!

https://openverse.org/audio/51a9ea21-dbc0-4f43-991e-3b8b6ce52c26?q=tuning+guitar&p=28

https://freesound.org/people/Garuda1982/sounds/612951

https://freesound.org/people/carroll27/sounds/151891

https://freesound.org/people/Didi0508/sounds/542095

https://freesound.org/people/_lourii/sounds/491741

https://freesound.org/people/27ace/sounds/722918

https://freesound.org/people/djfroyd/sounds/262867

https://freesound.org/people/Sky_Motion/sounds/612745

https://freesound.org/people/RavenWolfProds/sounds/653550

My final image

“All you need“

Spring 2025

Made with Photoshop

Music and love—what else? Inspired by John Lennon’s iconic song All You Need Is Love, I used a layer mask on the guitar and blending modes to fuse a mandala image into the instrument. The background was posterized to create a painted effect, blending seamlessly with the composition. Seashells, enhanced with bold gradient maps, complete the vibrant psychedelic theme.

I used the following images:

“Guitarra d’Antonio de Torres, MDMB 626, al Museu de la Música de Barcelona” by sguastevi. Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. WikiMedia Commons. 1 April 2015. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guitarra_d%27Antonio_de_Torres,_MDMB_626,_al_Museu_de_la_M%C3%BAsica_de_Barcelona.jpg

“CoeurHumain” by Meul. Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. WikiMedia Commons. 22 January 2008. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CoeurHumain.svg

“MANDALA 1G” by Tripan123. Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International. WikiMedia Commons. 22 June 2021. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MANDALA_1G.jpg

“The Great Orion Nebula in Narrowband” by Astrofalls. WikiMedia Commons. Attribution 4.0 International. 12 November 2019. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Orion_Nebula_in_Narrowband.jpg

“Acavus haemastoma fastuosa 01” by H. Zell. Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. WikiMedia Commons. 6 January 2013. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Acavus_haemastoma_fastuosa_01.JPG

Published
Categorized as Image

Guardians of the Andes

This composition honors the hardworking and resilient Andean woman of Peru. It depicts a mother and daughter with the llama, the legendary animal that provides both companionship and wool for their community’s textile art. In the background, Machu Picchu rises beneath a starry sky, where day and night merge, reflecting the difficult yet glorious past of the Inca Empire. The tones of purple and blue evoke wisdom and nostalgia, symbolizing the deep, timeless bond between the people, the land, and their enduring legacy.

Image sources

https://www.pexels.com/photo/view-of-the-machu-picchu-peru-20464561/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jfgallery/15719998271/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indigenous_mother_and_daughter_from_Peru.png

https://www.rawpixel.com/image/3285174/free-photo-image-cloud-galaxy-milky-way

My first PS abstract composition

Hi, class! This is my first original composition in Photoshop, though I used the program many years ago to edit family photos and create collages, instinctively learning the basic editing functions. This time, I experimented with two geometric shapes—rectangles and triangles—to create an abstract portrait of Jesus on the cross, using layer blending modes to add structure and achieve a Cubist aesthetic. This exercise helped me better understand complementary colors, though I still have much to learn about color logic when layering and blending. At first, I struggled to re-familiarize myself with the basics I had practically forgotten, but I really enjoyed the process!