Shoot 8 - Unrecognizable - Word Record

Date: 12/04/16

Plans for shoot:
In this shoot I will take pictures of someone in front of a blank wall. I will take them from different heights and zooming in, in different ways, but they will all be taken from the front and straight on. I will then liquify their face with the warp tool but I will vary each picture in the way I do this.

What I wish to achieve:
I hope to get some pictures that show subtly my inspiration from Edward Honaker's depression photography. To support my whole theme of loosing identity in yourself. I also want the pictures to have connotations of the mess and craziness that goes on inside a sufferers head that we can't see. Almost like a visual representation.

What I actually achieved:

This is one of my edited pictures from the shoot, I really like how it turned out and I like the way I have liquified it. I tried this tool in photoshop in various ways, pulling her face out to different angles but I think this one worked best. I also like the tonal contrast in this picture, which I have further defined by making it black and white. I think this picture has achieved the connotations of showing visually, the distortion and mess that sufferers thoughts turn to when they go through these mental illnesses. I think this is an important conceptual message behind the picture because many people, who haven't been through these mental illnesses, have difficulty understanding the impact they have on ones mind, this is because it is more difficult to comprehend when symptoms cannot be seen. Furthermore, I have found that in a lot of my photographer research, many depression and anxiety photographers have been through, or have known someone to have been through it, they therefore have a very good understanding of the implications of mental illness, they can then created good pictures because they are very real and truthful.

What I am going to do next:
To expand and develop my theme of losing identity I will do a shoot based on the idea of hiding and how people with mental illness feel hidden from the rest of the world including their friends and family as they feel like they are loosing who they are. I have already done one shoot on the idea of hiding and I like the way some of the images turned out and I think they show a very conceptual message behind them. Some of my straight images from this shoot have inspired me to develop and the idea of hiding.