Unknown Artist:
This image represents depression. When people with mental illness such as depression cannot control their illness they resort to self harm as a release. I chose this image as I believe for many people depression is an emotional subject. This image links into my project through the strong emotion it represents along with being shot in black and white. The image itself has a shallow depth of field as the hand/arm and bubbles in front of it are in focus however everything behind her arm and around the bath is blurred and out of focus. I feel that this makes you focus more on the arm and the blood rather than the whole image. The artist's image is in full black and white and I feel as though this sets more of a darker tone. There is no colour in the image, to me bright colour represents happiness so I feel as though this is why the artist removed all the colour. I feel as though the image represents depression well as self harm and is heavily related to the illness.
To take the images I used a fast shutter speed to capture a still image as it was hard for my model to remain the same position. Therefore I used a wide aperture to allow lots of light in, however I only did this for some and decreased the aperture for others to create the mood. To edit these images I cropped them slightly and applied a black and white filter. I then removed sections of my filter so that the red of the blood could show through as I felt as through this directed focus on this section of the image. I slightly adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image, lowering the brightness and raising the contrast which gave the images more of a sinister feel. I then cropped some of the images to remove negative space or unnecessary clutter in the images, making the eye automatically drawn to the subject.
To take the images I used a fast shutter speed to capture a still image as it was hard for my model to remain the same position. Therefore I used a wide aperture to allow lots of light in, however I only did this for some and decreased the aperture for others to create the mood. To edit these images I cropped them slightly and applied a black and white filter. I then removed sections of my filter so that the red of the blood could show through as I felt as through this directed focus on this section of the image. I slightly adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image, lowering the brightness and raising the contrast which gave the images more of a sinister feel. I then cropped some of the images to remove negative space or unnecessary clutter in the images, making the eye automatically drawn to the subject.
Click to enlarge:
For my development of this shoot I decided to show depression under a different light. I chose to display my model wearing a full face of makeup as if she is ready to go out. This was to show that people only really see the front that is put on, so the makeup, nice clothes and the smile are the first thing the notice until you look deeper into their life. You never know whether someone is depressed or not, therefore I presented the images like this as I believe it shows the makeup and the happy person at first then you notice the noose around the neck which represents the weight of depression on their shoulders. When taking these images I used studio lighting and flash on my camera this gave my image good focus and light. I used a plain background as this meant that the person stood out more and made the image all about the subject, which was my aim. I barely edited the images, just cropped them slightly to cut out negative space and made their layout portrait rather than landscape. I also added a minimal brightness and contrast filter over the top making the images feel more bright and airy. I was planning on adding a black and white filter to the images as this would make it fit in better with my project however I decided against this as I felt that the images in colour display how she is living in the eyes of other people; happy and lively. The edits are shown below (click to enlarge).