BVA 203 Research

After looking at some surreal self portrait photography works, I came up with an idea of changing my concept entirely with only a week left until submission. With Edward Honoker as the main inspiration for this, I thought I could recreate a self-portrait that is some what close to his ideas. With my idea, objective and concept, I was planning to speak out through photography instead of a self-interview video. Ideas: Main Idea: ESCAPE A self portrait where I act as if I'm tearing parts of my body part out to show that I want to escape from the darkness that is inside me. A series of self-portrait that shows Isolation. Concept: A series of self portrait photographs printed in Black and White to give out a stronger feel. Objectives: With a different medium of still photos instead of documentary videos, I thought that rather than showing a some what “failed doco”, why not speak through stills this time as I failed to do that last year. What I’d like to communicate through the...

Edward Honoker His series of dreamlike images expose his personal struggle with depression and allow viewers to further understand the sensitive topic that is mental illness. Diagnosed at 19, the young artist chose to explore the potential of communicating his emotions through a collection of self-portraits. The photographs incite a visceral reaction, unsettling in their stark, black and white compositions.       Christian Hopkins The young photographer uses photography as a coping mechanism for depression. He says, “I've been suffering from Major Depression for the past 4 years and it has manifested itself throughout that period in many ways, photography included.”        

I went with two different framing styles of a mid close up framing and a unconventional no looking space framing to give out a feeling of being trapped and isolated. The background represents depression and the soft white lighting represents my blurred hopes that are being eaten up by depression.

In the picture above as you can see, I've set out and decided to film on Friday and Saturday (5th and 6th of May) and have a whole month for me to edit and reshoot anything that I felt was missing from the self-interview.

I've found more interesting artist models for my project. 1. Cara Delevingne Cara Delevingne began modelling at a very young age. Her depression was triggered when she discovered her mother's drug addiction as a teenager. She explained that when she was younger, she had to play a stronger, more supportive role in her family, and only when she grew into her teens did she allow herself to give into her own emotions. Cara said, "I was suicidal. I couldn't deal with it any more. I realized how lucky and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die. I felt so guilty because of that and hated myself because of that, and then it's a cycle. I didn't want to exist anymore. I wanted for each molecule of my body to disintegrate. I wanted to die." Luckily, Cara found help at the age of 16. She left school for six months and agreed to go on medication, which she said might have saved her life. I believe that I was relating to this a lot and gave me an ide...

My question is:  Can documentary speak out on a sensitive issue? This project is set out to investigate if Documentary can actually change ones perspective about a certain subject. The project will be displayed on a big screen during the end of the project date. By doing so, I want to change people’s mindset about these issues. Some questions that I thought needed to be answered in my critique: How am I going to achieve this? By collecting data online or gather information from people around Why documentary and not some other medium? I think that by doing it through documentary, I can showcase it to the public in a better way of raising awareness. It is also something I’m really confident with rather than doing an awareness month which will require much more effort and time in my opinion. What do you look to get out of it?  I’d like to open people’s mindset and views about the issue. What kind of issues are you going to look into? - Most likely mental health iss...