My project for course: Creative Data Visualization for Beginners

My project for course: Creative Data Visualization for Beginners

This chart is about Japan's press freedom ranking from 2010 to 2020. I wanted to highlight a significant decline of the ranking after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's inauguration in 2012. I’m happy with the overall look but want to make the chart more interesting, blending with the background photo as in Gabrielle’s work… I tried blending option/3D, etc. but didn’t work. Please let me know if you have suggestions. And maybe typography can be improved?
Thank you very much for an interesting and informative course as it was my first time using Photoshop for a project!