FINALISING AN OUTCOME | oksphotography

Finalising an Outcome: Raising Awareness

To finish my portraits project, I wanted to use my work in a graphics-like project to raise awareness for a cause. I chose body dysmorphic disorder as it has great correlation to portraiture so I could use my work to aid information.

I created a range of outcomes raising awareness for BDD including:

a leaflet (a more practical outcome with information on the disorder as well as treatment methods and help sources).
a business card (easy to hand out and keep as it is small).
photographs (a more artistic outcome to catch attention and help improve public understanding of what it is like to suffer from the disorder).

I used the same set of photographs across all the different outcomes. The original images are shown in a slideshow below and as a set to the right.

My aim during the shoot was to keep it quite dark with glimpses of light. BDD sufferers feel anxiety at the prospect of people seeing what they consider to be their flaws, so remaining in darkness with spots of light highlighted certain features of my body, that to a sufferer, would stand out regardless of the light. Some of the images are completely dark. I did this so the viewer had to really search for the photograph content. This linked to the idea that sufferers prefer to remain out of sight where others cannot see them.

Thess images are a set of self portraiture. This meant I had to set my camera up on a tripod and use the self timer to take the photographs. This was challenging, especially when using my camera in manual mode,

because I had to retake the photographs many times to adjust my shutter speed (if the photos were coming out blurry or not capturing my movement when it was intended) and my aperture (to let more light into a dark scene). My ISO remained high during the shoot to brighten the photographs, however in some cases this has heightened the noise visible in the images. I was not particularly concerned about this because I liked the dark, grainy nature of the images.

I decided to use myself as the model to make the project much more personal and understanding. Sufferers do not like being seen, and I do not like being in front of a camera! This put pressure on me and made me feel insecure which replicated the feelings of a BDD sufferer so I could gain a better understanding of what it is like to be in their shoes. This also allowed me much more freedom over my movement and facial features as I could position myself exactly how I liked rather than having to instruct a model.

I captured slight movement in some of my photographs as I think this portrayed a feeling of discomfort and unease at being in front of a camera. In many of my images I have my eyes closed to portray that I am trying to shut out the person looking at the photograph. On the other hand, in some of the images I looked directly at the camera as I think this passed the discomfort onto the person viewing the image as it came across as quite pressuring and daring. In the images where I was trying to portray a scared, shy person, I looked away from the camera to cut off the connection between the model and the viewer. Another method I used to cut this connection was hiding my face with my hair.

First of all I created the leaflet. To do this I had to do some research to find some facts and correct information to put in the leaflet, accompanying my photography. I used a leaflet template from Pages as the basis of my leaflet. Included in my information was common misconceptions to give people a clear definition and idea of the disorder, impacts, treatment and support for sufferers.

I completed two different versions of the leaflet containing different photographs. I prefer the second leaflet because the images are edited to hold a similar tone, so they are better matched.

My second project was a business idea. My goal behind this was to create a product that was easily distributed, eye-catching card that contained information and an easy source for help.

I chose this particular photo for the card because it reminded me of misery and loneliness, however the warm gold tint of light shining through suggests hope and a way forward, which is the idea behind therapy. I liked how the photo led from dark to light as I thought this was a good analogy for therapy leading a patient from darkness to light.

For my final outcome I wanted to create a more artistic piece using this set of photographs. I printed 6x4 copies of all the images and using gold, silver and bronze pens created text as captions to the images to portray the mindset of a BDD sufferer. I used a range of different

layouts and colours. Scans of the prints, which I have used as my final piece for this project, are shown below. Please bear in mind the quality is significantly reduced from the physical copies due to scanning.

I used a range of different handwriting from neat, block letters to messy, rushed letters. The neater writing portrayed the calmer mindset asking for help, having acknowledged her problem logically. The messier writing portrayed the desperate, suffering mindset of destructive thoughts. The block letters portrayed a more demanding, aggressive side, along with rhetorical questions to confuse the viewer. Some of the messages were also positive, optimistic messages of self-love. I included these to show the sufferer's desire to help herself but her inability to do so due to the thoughts in her brain. The messages contain a range of different moods to show the whirlpool of thoughts going round her brain from hatred, love, desperation, aggression, misery, hopelessness and exhaustion.