When I began working on my montage, the original concept was to make harmful things appear safe. After beginning the process of creating this image I decided against that idea and went for a more indirect approach. The main concept is that of a little girl, un-harmed with child-like innocence still in tact, being reached out to by all the things that can hurt her. Drugs, mental illness, alcohol, death, the internet and media, abuse is all inevitably in her path, whether it affects her directly or not. The dead end sign is what I used to portray the fact that things and people will hurt you, it cannot be escaped. I used the background I did because it appeared to be friendly, welcoming and inviting, and I wanted to change the way good things were perceived, because as the saying goes, 'you don't know what happens behind closed doors'. I added clouds and a sky to the background to give more dimension to the otherwise plain wall. I retouched each image to fit my project concept even more accurately than it could have before. I wanted it to seem like a story of despair was up ahead, even in the most innocent and angelic lives.
