First, I had my roommate take my photo. I made deliberate choices about how to present myself. I picked a plain, rather bleak background and decided to wear dark neutral colors with no jewelry. I didn’t want other aspects of the photo to distract from the cracks. I wanted to minimize self-embellishment so I was authentic as possible – hair up, no makeup, and no shower since soccer practice.

I’d never used Photoshop before, so I found it really challenging. I watched a few YouTube tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeC-Dqg6DKc) but not only did I have to figure what I wanted to change about the photo, I also had to learn how to do it! The most interesting design choice I made was what kind of crack to use. I went through many iterations – one large crack, a few medium sized cracks, or lots of little hairline cracks covering my entire face. Here are a couple of the iterations, at various stages of editing.