For my project I wanted to focus on the empowerment of women.
To do this I took a perfume (Daisy by Marc Jacobs) that is stereotypically considered a ‘feminine’ perfume (especially in the adverts that I researched).
I kept to the Marc Jacobs brand and mixed the Daisy perfume with another one of Marc Jacobs perfumes, called Decadence. This perfume is seen and shown as a more mature perfume, meaning more for women who are perhaps of a mature age and with a business / power ethos.
I want to show the beauty and detail in objects that we often miss due to not being interested enough to look and just miss the details or we can’t see the subject’s detail fully with just the human eye. I wanted to pick a topic to photograph that is somewhat relevant to today, so I chose the topics of nature and household objects. This is because, due of Covid, we have all been trapped in doors for months and everyone is trying to find ways to cope with this and their mental health, so a lot of people have turned to nature. Being locked in isolation all year has made people appreciate the smaller things in life, so I wanted to capture this through the lens of a camera.
The theme I have in mind is horror-styled portraiture; like mugshots you see typically for criminals or offenders in prison. The photographs after could be edited to look grainy or darker for the after-effect.
A reason why I have chosen this theme is due to both personal preference and the way that different kinds of portraiture paint’s a different ‘story’ in a sense. If you use darker lighting, the subject could look more ‘evil’ or scary, while lighter lighting could portray them as a good person.
My intentions for my project was to raise awareness and reduce stigma surrounding mental health. Many of us have or know someone who has struggled with a mental illness, but we still avoid the topic or shy away from the conversation. Through my images, I narrated feelings of anxiety and isolation as well as also showing images associated with seeking help. I wanted the images to be something that people can feel connected to, and like someone has visually shown how they’ve felt. I wanted people to know that they aren’t alone, and that their mental health matters.
My creative independent project title is Perspective. The project includes topics such as feminism, gender stereotypes, toxic masculinity, and LGBTQ+ community. Raising awareness about these topics is important in my eyes as it needs more recognition. I have included macro photography within my portraiture work as this is what I started with and it developed into my project. I want to raise awareness about these serious subjects. I want to show the negative stereotypes of some of these topics and show that we need to change our views on this and start looking for the positives.
My creative independent project is focused on fashion photography. In my work I have shown modern garments made by the fashion students and I am collaborating with them for my final 6 images. Also, the garments are based of environmental issues such as weather patterns, so I have tried to link them by taking some of my images outside. By the end of this project, I want to be able to achieve some creative photos that outline some environmental issues and showcase the fashion students work. I also want to be able to create a time lapse of photos to show the working stages.
For my creative independent project, I decided to work in a commercial context, choosing to promote analogue watches. Research shows that young people are not wearing wrist watches but rely on the phones that tell the time. It’s more commercial based than artistic. I used different products like shower gel and glass bottles to experiment with. I attempted action shots including dropping the shower gel into water and trying to capture the moment where it splashes. For the watches I mainly used a dark background and soft lighting. The metal of the watch reflects some light and gave a sharp edge to the product.
I decided to do this project to show how people suffer with mental health. I wanted to do this using a colourful approach rather than a dark, monotoned one, so I’ve achieved this by painting with light and using coloured gels over lights. By using a colourful approach, I hope it will catch more people’s attention and raise awareness of how mental health is often pushed off to one side. I am happy with the photos I have taken and I hope they convey the message that a lot more people go through mental health problems than you initially realise. Basically, what I’m trying to get across is this: Be kind to everyone because you never know what someone is going through.
“Are you a man or a mouse?” Three quarters of all suicides in the UK are men and it is the most prevalent death of men under 30. I feel that our modern post-industrialist era has perhaps affected men’s place in society, but despite this, stigma and pressures have been maintained. My images attempt to explore these issues and make you think, raising awareness and encouraging understanding in an aim to save lives and give people a voice after centuries of being silenced. Suicide statistics outnumber all war and crime statistics combined, so this is something we must address.
