Final Assignment Series (progress update)

 Contact Sheet

This is one of my contact sheets for this final assignment and for this post I want to talk about the meaning of my piece and thought process going into this final project. 

Men's mental health has always been an interesting topic to me being someone who has suffered throughout my life and has seen how detrimental men's mental health is in my family. The original idea was to explore the lineage between mental health and family and how certain things are passed on and some are not. I wanted to capture myself, my father and brother during an interview discussing some fairly heavy topics and photograph moments from this conversation fairly sporadically. My brother was unable to be apart of it due to time constraints which changed a the project narrative a bit but this did allow me to explore my Dad's mental health more as well as my own. So far I have a few favourite images that show uncomfortable moments, high contrast, emotions and more. I did my interview with a close friend of mine after we had taken a bunch of photos whilst I took a bath, during this I swallowed a bunch of water and my eyes were red, I felt like shit and more, but to me this added a lot of emotion in the photos. My disheveled hair is a nice touch in these photos that I am really fond of as it feels very natural but gives off a crazy person look. The photos in the bath are really important to me as throughout my life men's personal care has always been something the world has neglected. It's extremely sad that people judge men who want to look after themselves and relax. It's sickening that throughout my life I have always been judged for taking baths as they are 'for women' and not heteronormative to look after yourself. It's really important to look after yourself and have time for you and I wanted to show that. 

This was my father's response to the question "What is Something I think I should talk about more" 

I never expected this type of reaction from him. It was a really beautiful moment between us and I think I will never forget how he opened up like that. The conversation was electric as we went back and fourth on his own mental health and how it differs from my own. Subjects included; the differences in mental health between generations, medication, his fathers suicide, his divorce, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and more. I heard from my siblings later on they he really cherished this opportunity and that was a reward in itself. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final Project

Image
Final Project Reflection  My final project was aimed to analyze the similarities and differences between my Father and I's mental health. I wanted to represent this project in an obtainable way to an gallery audience that would enable the content to relatable and fairly easy to interpret but also to be personal enough for me that it has deeper meaning. The style of photos I chose and created relied on heavy contrast which was achieved by using the red filters to get the perfect amount of black but maintain the highlights. In class we spoke about how happy accidents are real part of this project specifically looking at  how the photos of me have a lot more white and the photos of my dad are have a lot more black. I find this unique and could portray a deeper meaning not obtainable by the audience member but open to interpretation.  For this project I did a lot of testing in the dark room and fell in love with the enlargement process. This is the first time I have actually ...
Read more

A - Z assignment

Image
For this assignment I wanted to limit myself to taking photos of things that had to do with cars only. That being license plates parking signs, and car models.  I cropped everything in vertical fashion and stiches them together into this even square structure that I find compelling. It is meant to invite the user in nice and close to figure out what is even going on. I love it.
Read more

Pinhole Photography Project

Image
  Pinhole Photography Assignment Reflection Overall I enjoyed the assignment and felt that I learned a handful about the photographic process and gained a new appreciation for photography. My mind was blown by how simple yet complex a pinhole can be and that essentially anything can be a pinhole camera. The photos you get when using a pinhole camera have such a unique look, and I think that's what I like most about pinhole. The grunginess of the photos really leans itself to my style of photography; people often will use photoshop to get this look, but though trial and error, pinhole just does it for you. In conclusion, I would happily do pinhole again and think I could vastly improve upon my previous designs and photos with the knowledge I gained during this assignment.  "Where my eyes cannot go"  For this photo, I was inspired to try and replicate what it might look like if you could see through the world and everyone walked on glass. I had my subject on a ledge with on...
Read more