Identity to me is the idea of how you present yourself as your own person, shaped by family, past events and simply how you view yourself. Over time, the broadness of how people present their identity has expanded.

Carolle Benitah

Benitah was a French visual artist who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, exploring memory, family and the passage of time.  Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Benitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

Through covering faces and different features, the people in the photographs have had their identity’s almost stripped from them. I chose to study Benitah as I feel that her art best represents the concept I hope to capture within this project.

Initial idea

To me, knowing and having your own identity is the most important thing to a person. However, there are some cases where your identity is ignored and covered. I will be exploring a veterans past events within the army and how serving effected the lack of identity he had. To mimic Benitah’s work, I will be editing my photos in with the purpose of concealing his face to convey the concealed identity he had during his war career.

My Response

Photo shoot 1

For my first photo shoot, I will incorporate both geographical ideas into one. As the veteran carried out his training in England, there are no staple landmarks at our disposal. Instead we will go to multiple locations which are landmarks for the occupation in WWII. We will visit where the Royal Artillery regiment were located during the war as that is the regiment the model was apart if when fighting in the Falkland war. We will carry out the photo shoot when the weather is clear.

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Photo shoot 2

Whilst out completing the first photo shoot, we will also take the opportunity to take portraits of the model with various background. This will hopefully be on the same day so then the weather is consistent over the photo shoots.

Editing and choosing photos

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I took photos of book covers to in cooperate with editing my final photos. I also found the newspaper article announcing his leave and thought i could create a comparison concept.

Hand Edits

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Photoshop editing

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Photo evaluation

i chose this image as one of my final photos because not only it explores the lack of identity within the model, it ties in with the after effects of war on mental health. I feel like this links in with identity as the ‘PTSD war’ reflects on how veterans are still apart of a constant battle which has been burnt into their perspective of who they are. I used a cutting tool to remove the face in response to Benitah’s work. This works well as the missing face can be seen in many ways. For me, when i see the missing face, i think of the fact that the veteran didn’t have a clear grasp of his identity in the past and it is reflected onto his present self, being in a state of feeling stuck in his past, preventing him to reinvent his new identity.

As a starting photo, i chose a photo of the model looking up. This is because the book cover i used to edit, contains an image from the war at the bottom of the cover. The fact that the veteran is looking away from the past image conveys resistance of him looking back at his old, hidden identity and wanting to look beyond the low point in hopes of reinvention in the future.

To edit this photo, i started by printing off the original image onto gloss paper as the texture would make it easier to smudge the paints over. This photo was taken at a bunker site at the same place equipment was kept involving the Royal Artillery. This location is important to the purpose of my editing. When smudging the paint, it looked to me like the model we being blended into the location ( that being a site for the RA ). This presents identity in a peculiar way as i tried to present that his identity will always be blended to the RA. The editing style was inspired by the way Benitah hand edited her photos through sewing and painting.

Being apart of the RA was very important to veteran as even though he was struggling with his identity as well as others. He loved the feeling of being apart of something bigger than himself. This is why i kept the image with a bright tone and used white paint to show that even through the hard moments, this particular event also had positive effect of how he reflects on his growth and how far is identity has developed.