Semi-finalist 2025
| Submitted by: | Zijia Yu |
| Department: | Psychiatry |
| Faculty: | Medicine + Dentistry |
He sat quietly beneath the tree, not speaking, not moving much, just thinking. Above him, the branches hung down gently, like something unfolding from within. For a moment, it felt as if his thoughts were drifting upward, silent at first, then slowly taking shape, branching, curling, tracing soft lines through the air until they became part of the tree itself.
Each branch seemed to echo a mental process: some looping back, others extending far, delicate, tentative, alive. The scene reminded me that thoughts don’t always stay inside our heads. Sometimes, they drift. They reach out, connect, and anchor themselves to the world around us.
In neuroscience, we talk about circuits and networks. But here, in this quiet space, the brain and nature didn’t feel like separate systems. They felt like different expressions of the same thing — structured, organic, and always reshaping the way we exist in the world.
Was your image created using Generative AI?
No.
How was your image created?
The image was created by combining photography with digital editing techniques. I began by taking a photo using a DSLR camera (Sony), capturing a person sitting quietly on a bench beneath a tree with drooping branches. I deliberately focused on the person while softly blurring the background, including the tree, to suggest that thought begins internally, even as the world around us continues. This selective focus evokes the hazy, drifting quality of thought, especially in moments of uncertainty or introspection. I applied a warm, yellow-toned filter to reinforce a quiet, contemplative mood. The upper part of the image was digitally modified using Bio-Render to generate neuron-like structures inspired by dendritic arbors and synapses. Finally, I added a soft white border to suggest that thoughts can extend beyond the frame into undefined, imagined space.
Where is the image located?
This photo was taken around the river valley, near to the downtown side of the High Level Bridge.