Personal Investigation
This selection of images are taken from a project titled ‘Personal Investigation’. I set myself the task of creating self-portraits that reflected the mood I was feeling at the time.
The purpose of this project was to use photography to get to know myself on a deeper level. My interest in art therapy was a big source of inspiration, I used an art therapy task to create these images.
In post-production I used overlayers in photoshop to create the effect of two faces in one image. I used this technique to display a feeling of cloudiness – not being sure what to think or which way to go. I also used a red tint overlayer on top of the double exposure. The colour red connotes feelings of stress and discomfort, which were things I felt at the time.
This selection of images were also created inspired by an art therapy task. The task I gave myself, inspired by a task I found in the Art Theapy Sourcebook, was to capture an old negative emotion in artwork to help myself see that negative emotion as something of the past in order to help myself let go of it. The negative emotion in question here is ‘trapped’. I used cling film wrapped around my face to visually symbolise this feeling.
I expanded on the top three images with these bottom three. I used a smiley face overlay ontop of three cling film images to represent putting on a happy face when inside you are struggling.
With these images I explored the connection between humans and nature. Oneness is something that fascinates me; all beings, animals and plants alike, are all striving for one thing; to grow and flourish. When I am struggling, I like to remind myself that everything, including the hard times, are all a part of my journey.
These images are images that led me to creating the above ‘cling film’ images. When I have an idea that I would like to present but am struggling to figure out how, I like to just play around and see where they take me. These images took inspiration from artist duo SH Sadler.
