Mental Health
A taboo subject, something as common as cold yet metal health is kept in a deep place within a person. Fears and phobias plague everyone's minds, they fester and can effect us mentally. Anxiety and deppression can take over a person and no-one could even notice. In this section of my project i will be lloking into the deepest of identity, mental health.
Evgeny Yarkyshev and Christian Sampson
For my phobia shoot i have taken inspiration from the work of Evgeny Yarkyshev and Christian Sampson. Both present an equally unique style but both capture an impressive and strong narrative in their images. Yaryshev impressively captures detail and uses high contrast to emphasise the detail. He strips the image of saturation to create a ghostly and eerie mood. For me, his images evoke sympathy as in all three of his images the subject is silently begging for help. This fear and helplessness is what i also want to capture in my own images. I plan to take influence from Sampson in the future as well as for my phobia shoot. His collection "A visual depiction of mental Disorders" shows subjects suffer, the gloominess emphasised by the black and white colours. Sampson's use of stripping away the identity is what i want to achieve in my own images.
Evgeny Yarkyshev
Christian Sampson
The Strange Fears and Phobias
Below are my images representing the strange fear. Every human on this planet is burdened by at least one phobia, making some fears extremely common. For some however, their phobias can come across as unnatural and odd. For that reason they tend to keep their fears to themselves and in this shoot i want to represent them. I chose to use black and white images for a moody setting, much inspired by the artist above. I added one additional colour to the images, red, as this connotates with anger, horror and boldness, some of the feeling a person may have towards their fear. The collection is a mix between Photoshop and mixed media pieces, this is due to the techniques being fitting for the phobias. The fear of sleep is represented by the subject desperately trying to open sewn up eyes, to show he is fighting the urge to rest out of fear. The fear of eyeballs is depicted with a scanography piece with glass covering the eyes, as a way to protect their sight. The fear of abandonment is show by an isolated subject surrounded by red streaks of paint showing their panic. The fear of failure is shown by a slow sync image of the subject screaming in frustration and a large painted 'x' across the image. Finally the fear of disorganisation is best depicted by the subjects head being a incorrect jigsaw puzzle. The collection is a success and could of only been strengthened by further extending the list of fears, while still following the red, black and white colour scheme, as well as the dark and emotive atmosphere.
HYPNOPHOBIA- The fear of Falling Asleep
OMMETAPHOBIA- The Fear Of Eyeballs
ATYCHIPHOBIA - The Fear Of Failing
AUTOPHOBIA- The Fear Of Abandoment
ATAXOPHOBIA- The Fear of Disorder
Anxiety
Anxiety is a broad disorder, its feeling unease, worried, and fearful. It common for people to feel anxious during times of stress. However for others, this feeling of dread can be constant or more frequent affecting their lives. Anxiety like this can form from traumatic experiences, social anxiety, phobias and panic disorders. In this section of mental health i will express the feelings of anxiety, putting into a more receptable output. Anxiety can be hard to explain without the aid of physical proof.
Joiner photos
From my own perspective, anxiety confuses you. When having an episode of bad anxiety, you feel muddled and disconnected, panic and fear seem to be all that is on your mind. For inspiration, i looked into David Hockney, a British designer and photographer, working all the way from the 60s to present day. A style, which Hockney is most profound for, is joiner photography, as he was a pioneer in this photo style. Hockney produced collages of photos, which he called ‘joiners’, using a Polaroid camera back in the 80s when he first began to experiment with this mixed media topic. Hockney studied movement while producing these images, he wanted to achieve an inside look on the motion of things, and wanted to capture more of the moment. Joiners allowed him to capture the motion in depth, from different angles and really express the complexity of it, which is hard to show on just one photo that captures only one part of the scene. Personally I find his joiners that use people, as his subjects are fascinating. I like that they show the complete detail of a person, giving them character and leaks some of their personality out even though it’s only a photo. In my own work I would also like to include a human subjects, exploring their body language through movement and reveal that they are complex. Another thing I like is that his photos feel quite personal, showing the details of a person’s appearance and connecting with the viewer. In my own work I intend on achieving similar connections, fully exploring the details on the human body and the effects of the disorder. I want this capture of angels depict the stress and confusion of anxiety.
Anxiety: Here's a thought..
Anxiety is connected with negative thinking, primarily being the cause of bad thoughts. Sufferers are put into a dark space and left with their own mind to grow in fear and worry. To portray this i chose to capture two subjects with shafts of light, depicting the isolation. When printed out i used black and white paint to create a marble-pattern cloud which loomed over the subject, representing the negative mindset that seeps in when struggling with anxiety.
This last image in this collection is my favourite. This is because the 'cloud' of marble paint takes up the majority of the image, leaving the subject swarmed by the anxiety. I think the dramatic tonal contrast fits this scenario perfectly. I think the shoot could have been stronger, if i showed a development of the anxiety getting worse over time.
Tim Pakron
Timothy Pakron is a photographer and artist from the city of Mississippi. His work is focused around the technique of using a dark room. Pakron’s pieces are used by dripping the developer over photographic paper after being exposed to light through a negative. A theme that is common in all his pieces is high tonal contrast of black and white, I really like this aspect of his work as it defines things which might otherwise be hard to see. Another reason I find the contrast important is because it draws attention to things such as eyes, and gives the pictures an overall dramatic look. In my own work, I hope to achieve the same dramatic effect using the deep tonal contrast. Another aspect to Pakron’s work is the dripping effect, this is where he has let the developer run down the page. This technique creates quite an eerie feeling for me and makes the photos look creepy. I think Pakron has done this to show sadness of the model or even to represent a ghost, this is because much of the photo is missing possibly showing the feeling of ‘not being completely there’. I want to use this technique to present the feeling after a panic attack, you feel disappointed with yourself and feel isolated which is depicted in the photos i will produce.
Stripped Away
My favourite of all of my experiments is the one above. I like that the eyes are missing which for me represents the fact anxiety can be concealed. If i was to improve my work i would try photos with a black background rather than white.
Living with Mental illness
Depression impacts an individual in various ways, combined with anxiety, it can be a toxic trait. It damages their persons mind and changes the views they have on theirs selves and their lives. For inspiration i have turned to Christian Sampson. Sampson is a photographer who focuses on the appearances of mental health issues. As mentioned in earlier analysis, he created a collection called "A visual depiction of Mental disorders" which creates a visible version of something that is invisible. Due to mental issues not always causing physical damage, people tend to push it off as some overthinking or phase, but through Sampson's images, the illnesses can be conveyed. All of the images in his collection are black and white- which increases the dramatic and high tension in the photos, allowing the viewer to dip into the experience of living with a mental illness. I like that Sampson always conceals parts of the subjects identity, which shows that it is not the person, instead it is just the mental disease. In my own work i also want to depict the feelings of mental illness through purposeful images with the same dramatic impact.
Mixed media anxiety
The meaning behind these images are depicted in the scratched on text. Anxiety isn't always as visible as believed, this is why i decided to scratch it on white paper to make it slightly less visible. The reason behind the scratching is to represent anger. Sufferers can fall into insecurities and self-hatred, constantly asking "why am i like this?". The photos' dramatics are increased with the high tonal contrast and vignette, similar to Sampson.
In my final section, i am looking into images to represent feelings, using quotes from people who experience, mental illness. Each image caters to the quote seen next to it.
"Your mind is not where you want it to be"
"It feels like bits of who you are, are just falling away"
"I go hot with panic, it feels like my head is burning. I'm not thinking straight"
The reality of Mental illness is that it is not pretty, it's gritty, dark and lonely. As it can be different for everyone it is difficult to understand. Below are interpretations of these feeling. Each one intended to express the complex feelings of depression, and interpretation using reference from a close friend of mine who suffered.
" i struggle to make decisions, my mind zips around"
" I become overwhelmed and suddenly i don't want to be outside anymore"
"Depression for me isn't this intense deep sadness every single day, it's no emotions, physical struggling and numbness"
"I feel rude for ignoring people or spacing out but i can't divide my attention"
"For me living through depression feels so hopeless"
" I struggle with memories, my mind is filled with fog"
"I feel so lonely when i try to explain it to others who don't realise this is a part of me"
Representation
Finally, my last objective is to convey mental health as if it could be seen between a moment of stillness and a moment of tension. Through the journey of my project i have focused on identity, moving from the general city life, to the individual. The purpose was to show the complexity of identity and reveal the hidden aspects to a person. My final focus of identity was on mental health, possible the most concealed aspect of a individual, and the message i wanted to get across was how unknown it is to other people. At first i followed the mixed media approached earlier in my journey, to convey a sense of struggle, my first picture featured string sewed over the subjects mouth, trying to cover up his anguish. The image showing black string represents how mental health obscures the identity of the subject. The final string image shows how the two sides of a person comes together, and how someone can be a completely different person when suffering with issues like anxiety or depression. This gave me the idea to focus on perspective, i decided to experiment with this idea of seeing people in different ways throughmore mixed media.
The next few images are more technical, often featuring 3D aspects. Below i have started to combine the images more, to experiment with showing both the 'normal' side of the subject along with the 'suffering' side. The first image i weaved to combine them into one image, one moment and one subject. The second image is 3D, with the middle section protruding outwards to show how mental health can reach the centre of a person. The next image shows the suffering side being revealed by pealing back the 'normal' subject to represent the damage caused to the subject. Finally, the last image is made up of two image, sliced and merged together, creating a similar effect to the weaved image, but offers a more neater and clearer picture. The quality of these images were lost while scanning them in, the original photos can be found in my mixed media book.
After completing this collection of images i found that i really like the 3D aspects, something that the viewer can have physical interactions. I also loved the slits idea, and combining more than one image to create a neat but complex layered image. I wanted my final piece to be interactive, so i decided to base my work on perspective. From some points of view a person may seem fine, but when you look a bit more, hidden struggles can be found. I was inspired by my previous work, where the image was made up of slits of two images as well as by the front cover of photography book "Between still and moving images" published in October 2012 by Laurent Guido and Olivier Lugon. The image is cut into long strips, creating a merging image from two separate photos. centred in the portrait image is a man, laughing and then pulling a serious face. This conveys the action of movement, as well as showing a mixture of emotions within just one moment. The image is a dirty monochrome tone, with little contrast, in my own images i prefer a high tonal contrast with sharp black and white colours. This inspired me to create a merged image, made up of two images, capturing a range of emotion much like this books cover.
The images i used for my final section were taken with a subject against a white background, with a black shirt on for contrast. The images are in black and white for a dramatic tonal contrast, to catch detail and to give off a moody, eerie and suspenseful atmosphere. I captured the images using a softened flash for clarity and detail. The idea for my final piece was to be looked at from different angles to reveal different images. To achieve this i created an image in photoshop that featured the slits of each image side by side. When printed out i folded the images were each slit connected, to create images that protruded from the wall.
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My final piece is based on perspective, both as an idea as well as the physical aspect of my image. When viewed from one side the image depicts the subject "normal" with no visible emotion. When looked at from the opposite perspective, the image has changed to a distressful emotion. The message behind this piece represents the hidden emotions and reality of a person, that what you see at first is not the entirety of the picture. Identity is more than one photo on a flat plain, it is complex for each and every individual. mental health is a issue that should be approached from every angle, in attempts to full understand the person at the centre of it all.