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.
My final project is about people’s most listened to and/or favourite song during lockdown. The multiple lockdowns over the past year ended up leaving everyone feeling isolated and anxious. My models gave me a song that they have either listened to a lot during the past year or songs that gave them comfort. I then created a series of images based on the lyrics in these songs including songs by artists such as Taylor Swift and Fall Out Boy. For everyone music was a way to escape the ‘real world’ and the stresses that came with the current events. In one survey it mentioned that 91% of participants said that music helped them feel a sense of escapism. Music is all around us, but we’ve never realised how important and useful it is to uplift us, as well as to distract us, until we were made to ‘stay safe’ and to ‘stay at home’.
I wanted to make my final project about something current and relevant, I think we can all agree that there is nothing bigger or more relevant right now than the Covid-19 lockdowns. So that is exactly what I have based my project upon. The title of my project is ‘What It Felt Like’ because that is exactly what it represents, what it felt like to live during lockdown. We have all had to adapt to a new way of life over the last year and now, finally, it looks like we may be moving past all of this. So with the UK lockdowns soon to end, I felt now was a great time to look back on the bizarre year we have all had to endure and to try and encapsulate some of the key moments from that time, that we can all relate to.
Ornstein (1975) describes the eye as the most important avenue of personal consciousness’ and it is estimated that 90% of the information we receive about the external world reaches us through the eyes.’
My project is about students. I feel through the coronavirus pandemic we have been ignored and pushed aside, left to deal with college/school on our own, forced to adapt quickly to online learning, which has been difficult for many people. For my project I have photographed a range of different students, showing how different and individual we all are. I find that eye photos are quite uncomfortable to look at, but they’re so interesting at the same time, you can’t look away from them. With this project I want to force you to look at students for once – don’t ignore us, we are all talented individuals, we should be treated as such. Don’t look away from us.
For this project I decided to focus on documentary style street photography with my subject of interest being graffiti and other similar street arts including murals, tags, slaps and paste-ups. I wanted to reveal to my audience that not all types of graffiti are specifically vandalism, because I think that if done well even graffiti types that are typically considered vandalism can make a plain building look more interesting. I like the look of graffiti however I know a lot of people only see it as vandalism. With my images I would like to challenge preconceptions and encourage debate around the topic of graffiti.
This project is based around commercial, still life photography. I decided to base my project on more commercial work as I am fascinated with how companies create advertisements in such unique and creative ways. I decided to venture into many different styles of commercial still life. I have experimented with taking photos of many different things such as alcohol, high-end consumables such as shower gel and even coffee. I also had the chance to take part in some extra work taking some images of Indian street food, which I have decided to add into my final 6 images. My final 6 images are going to show the different products I have chosen to advertise and how every product is showcased in different ways.
My final 6 consist of 3 food Images and 3 that have a concept of water.
This work looks at slow shutter speed outside. The idea of movement has always interested me, so that was my aim for this project. I photographed trail of of movement that became a blur, the images with blur shows a passing of time and a business. This work started as experimental, but I managed to capture and recreate the aesthetic of motion. My inspiration came from abstract work with slight distortions. This makes it harder for the audience to make out what the actual image is.
My project is to show that fruit is precious and should be protected because we need five a day to properly function. Most people overlook fruit because of what it looks like so I wanted to show/ represent it in a different way to what you would see in a shop shelf. I chose to use certain materials because of their bright colours and textures which makes it eye catching. The wrapping of fabric creates a layer of safety from getting bashed or bruised and helps preserve the fruit for consumption while traveling. I wanted to show this in an arty/ abstract way.
My Independent project is called ‘As a Woman’ and explores the women in my life as well as things women are expected to do to fit into the patriarchal society we live in. My project also looks at topics like misogyny, stereotypes about women and looks at small details in women’s lives. I want to show how all women are different yet we are all brought together by feminism and issues regarding how women are treated and seen in society. My project aims to bring women together and educate people on feminism but also illustrate to women how the stereotypes and standards for them shown in media and fed to us everyday has brought about a patriarchal society and ‘as a woman’ we do not need to comply with these rules to be fulfilled or happy within ourselves.
