“How to Save a Life,” by The Fray

This song has many interpretations, but mine is that it’s about troubled relations, whether it be between friends or family. For example, losing a good friend or getting in a fight with one of your parents. Sometimes there are no words that can describe the way you feel, but music can. It evoked some feelings of sadness, but it isn’t a super depressing song. I have the image of two hands trying to reach out for each other to symbolize losing someone but still trying to save them.

 

In the song, the singer pleas to God that he can hear his friend and help her with her troubles. The image above isn’t a picture of Him, but it symbolizes the hope in the song that maybe things will work out in the end. The singer also says he “lost a friend, somewhere along in the bitterness.” I made a type portrait of a woman with a tear rolling down her cheek as losing a someone that means a to you is hard.

To create my photos in photoshop, I used a lot of drop shadows to give my text an additional depth. I changed the font of certain words or changed their size to add emphasis. For the type portrait, I used different shades of black and grey to give the apperance of shadows on the eye. In Illustrator, I gave my phrase a 3-d effect and a drop shadow to give it added depth and emphasis. I used a gradient for the background to give the picture an “awakening” kind of look.