Work Diary - Shoot 11: Mental Illness

Evaluation

For this shoot, I wanted to use the influence of Erwin Blumenfeld's editing skills within his photography, and experiment a lot more with Photoshop such as using: text, opacity, different filters, different blur tools etc. As well as making my photos as extraordinary as they can be. As this shoot revolves around the concept of the feelings of suffering with mental illness, I wanted the photos to be shocking and abnormal. Which I believe I have achieved through using different editing tools. These photos are self-portraits, so I set up my camera on a tripod, changed the settings to ISO 200, F22, and a shutter speed of 1/125, and positioned it so that there was a white background for the images, so that the soul focus would be on me as a model, and what the images are showing. I enjoyed creating this shoot because I was the model as well as the photographer, so I was able to capture images that I knew I wanted. 

This is one of the most shocking images out of the shoot. Here, I have taken 3-5 images of myself pulling my facial features around, and the I have layered these images on top of one another using Photoshop, and decreased the opacity of each image accept the background one, each time decreasing the percentage by a little bit more so that each image can be seen. The idea behind this was the feeling of having so much going on in your mind or overthinking, or experiencing multiple personalities. I used a black and white effect to make the image just a little more 'creepy' and I also thinks this enhances each layer of the images. 

The influence for this image was Post-Traumatic Stress and/or lack of body confidence, low self esteem. For this image, I wore a low top so that in the image it looked as though I was nude, which creates the feeling of vulnerability, and then positioned my arms so that it looked as though I was covering myself, but also gripping on out of fear. Within Photoshop, I then displayed the words "DON'T LOOK AT ME" across my face, which expresses the fear of being seen, lack of self worth, and ultimately, feeling scared. Again, I also made this image black and white because it adds to the scared and depressed feeling that the image portrays. 

Progression 

For my next shoot, I plan to continue with the mental illness theme, but experiment with water within my images. Therefore, I have the idea that I will use water to portray the feelings of "Drowning" in your own thoughts and emotions, which most people feel when suffering with illnesses.