THE TED CRUZ PHOTOSHOP PROJECT: DAY 1[Ted Cruz’s face is very...

THE TED CRUZ PHOTOSHOP PROJECT: DAY 1

[Ted Cruz’s face is very interesting to me. I’ve decided to do an apolitical photoshop to it once a day, every weekday, from now until I don’t do this anymore. I will post the pictures, as well as what I learned about myself in the process, here exclusively on tumblr and unexclusively on Tidal.]

For my first installment, I decided to start small and just switch Ted Cruz’s eyes around, to put the left one where the right is supposed to go and the right one where the left is supposed to go. Ted Cruz’s eyes, which are IN MY OPINION the window to the soul, have always been very unsettling to me. I thought maybe if I switched them they’d look more appropriate, or perhaps serve has windows to a different, better soul. That did not happen. This photoshop does not make me see Ted Cruz in a different or better light, but a strange thing did occur. I found that if I stared at his face long enough, it DID start to look normal. It didn’t look like Ted Cruz’s original face by any means, but I did start to accept that this COULD be a person’s face.
A person COULD look like that.

Which is to say, if I stare at this long enough, it no longer looks like a photoshop to me even though I distinctly remember making it. Christina, my post supervisor said “Oh god, is that how his eyes are” when she saw me making it and Rosie, my head of production, suggested that I work on blending the colors better. The advice was unsolicited and in actual point of fact I hadn’t even started working on the colors when she saw it and I obviously was GOING to (making her advice wholly unnecessary) but I understand that she was just trying to help.

What Did I Learn Doing This:

The world is a scary place made scarier by loss and loneliness. It’s important to surround yourself with people who want to support you. Learning how to appreciate the advice you didn’t ask for is as difficult and important as learning when to ask for advice in the first place. There are lessons and gifts everywhere, in everything, but you’ll miss them if you don’t keep your eyes open (even if those eyes are on the wrong sides).

Did This Make Me Like Ted Cruz More:

Not particularly, no. It did not.