My idea is all about mental health issues and how people struggle to express them. It is something I can personally relate to and wanted to give people an insight into.
My idea was originally inspired by the work of Andrea Costantini, he encouraged me to open up about emotions, thoughts and feelings. I then looked at artists such as Jo Spence and Duane Michals. These are artists whose work features the combination of image and text in different styles.
I had used text layering techniques in previous assignments and knew I wanted to incorporate text to help portray my theme. I started by experimenting with a technique called text portraits. This involved placing large amounts of text over a portrait. Unfortunately I did not feel this gave the right look to my images as it was very regimented and flat.
Upon revisiting the work of Andrea Costantini, I was inspired to try a technique called photomontage. I created my own montage images in Photoshop, adding various images relating to my anxiety to a self portrait. I really enjoyed trying a new editing technique but felt that this didn’t express my concept in the right way. I think it was too obvious and didn’t leave space for the viewer to reach their own conclusion.
I then researched a new artist called Cal Gaines, in particular his experimental work. This then inspired me to be more creative with lighting and movement. I used lighting gels and a long shutter speed to capture various upper body movements. This was one of my favourite shoots from this assignment and the point in my project where I started to produce work I really liked, that fitted well with my concept.
To add another element of dimension, I then tried layering individual words that relate to anxiety above my self-portraits. I also experimented with different fonts which I downloaded from dafont.com. Although this did not work it was something I needed to try.
I finally experimented with layers and opacity and I also adjusted the blending modes. This allowed me to show several expressions in one image.
I decided to produce two final images which were both self portraits. One shows not all pain is physical and one shows how not all pain is visible. I added a thick white border to my image to draw attention to the photograph. I then added a thin black line around the image to add definition between the end of the image and the beginning of the canvas.
Throughout this project I have expanded and refined my Photoshop knowledge and skills. I also used a graphics tablet for some of my editing which I found very helpful once I built my confidence.
I have really enjoyed my final major project as it gave me complete creative freedom to photograph whatever I chose. I was able to use the skills I have learnt throughout my course to produce work means a lot to me personally.