Edward Honaker is a a 21 year old photographer who documents his own depression through the use of self portraits, the black and white images illustrates the photographer’s experience with depression and anxiety. In an attempt to raise awareness of the topic, Honaker says about the project: “Mental health disorders are such a taboo topic. If you ever bring it up in conversation, people awkwardly get silent, or try to tell you why it’s not a real problem. When I was in the worst parts of depression, the most helpful thing anyone could have done was to just listen to me – not judging, not trying to find a solution, just listen. I’m hoping that these images will help open up conversation about mental health issues. Everyone is or will be affected by them one way or another, and ignoring them doesn’t make things better.”

While mind mapping ideas for my personal project I focused on the seven aspects of the Island Identity project to give me a clear focus and not get distracted from the main idea. I used some points taken from our class posters such as the Siam cup and jersey as a tax haven however the idea I want to further study is the diverse food in migrant communities. I briefly touched upon this topic hen creating a zine however I only explored traditionally jersey food such as les pais au fou (Jersey bean crock) In this project I want to explore this more in depth, celebrating the culture of our many migrant communities and educating myself along the way.

To create my mood board I found many photos online of cultural food and people eating it. Most of the images I found were predominantly Asian whilst the demographic for my project will be mainly Europeans since that is he highest demographic in Jersey. Whilst searching for images I came across the work of MAGDA ADAMCZAK whose photos really resonated with me and my idea for what I want to do for my own project.

Mind-map of the theme of Identity , to help with my personal study;

MOOD BOARD-

By doing a small research task on The Island Identity, this has allowed me to understand what makes Jersey unique and the important factors that make up Jersey for what it is, it’s identity. This has allowed me to think about my personal study and how I wan to do it on something that’s important to me and identifies me as an individual.

From your Personal Investigation based on IDENTITY & COMMUNITY write an overview of what you learned so far (both as Yr 12 and Yr 13 student) and how you intend to develop your Personal Study.

1. Describe which themes, medium (photography, film), approaches (documentary, tableaux, conceptual), artists (incl contextual references to art history, movements and isms) and photographic skills, processes, techniques and methods (incl learning new software) inspired you the most and why.

themes of family and culture were the most important to me , we have explored this a lot through our subtopic of identity an community. I prefer to use the medium of film as its what I am most comfortable with making and also allows me to express my work more clearly by using music and visual effects. I really like the work of Vin and Omi who I studied when doing my most recent mock exam. As fashion designers they are not who I would usually gain inspiration for artist reference from however the clothes they make really resonated with my ideas of fast fashion. I loved how brightly coloured this project was as it really stood out from previously black and white or low mood photography which I felt allowed me to have much more creative control and more experimentation. Throughout my A level course my photography skills have progressed as I came onto the course with no skills in photography and could barely take a picture. Although I have massively improved I am still cautious with trying new photography techniques and rely heavily on automated settings on my camera. I hope to use this personal project as an excuse to learn more about my camera and move to a more advanced level of photography.

2. Include examples of both previous and current experiments and imagery to illustrate your thinking

The first big independent study of photography I had was my photography mock focusing on the theme, ‘identity and place’. Before this project I would not take many photo’s when out on a shoot which left my contact sheets lacking in images which resulted in me having limited choice in editing which in turn made my projects not so good. This was the first time I took lots of photos so I had plenty to choose from, allowing me to make my best final project at the time. This taught me the importance of taking an abundance of photos as well as showing me the difference it can make when there is lots of choice. The project also allowed me to obtain more skills in photoshop which I was, at the time, struggling with.

After this project as completed I was interested in editing my images further outside of the brief. I used lightroom to create a multicoloured montage that I used to try and emulated both Andy Warhol and the 2000s pop movement

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Out of this small mini-project this was my favourite final image. It may in fact be my favourite image I have created throughout my entire photography course. I love how the bright yellow has created a synthetic almost latex effect reminiscent of Britney Spears outfit from the music video of ‘Oops I did it again’

Doing creative projects like this has reaffirmed my love of brightly coloured photography which I continue in other subjects such as Media and Film Studies as well as having a firm link into pop culture which I also love.

During year 12 we explored many different topics and did many different projects. We looked at themes such as Anthropocene , street photography , portraiture abstract and many more. This has allowed me to be able to find out how the themes I enjoy photographing the most as I have been able to try many themes and now in year 13 I know where my strengths are and where I can focus on project on. We also experimented with many different skills in photography for example different lighting techniques and using artificial and natural lighting and creating a film.
Over the photography course I have mainly enjoyed focusing on the portraiture and object based shoots. I enjoyed shoots in the studio where I use artificial lighting and set up the shoot rather than using a more natural setting. I feel my strengths are within portraiture photography as I like being able to control my shoots and set up the lighting rather than having to work around a set up. I like portraiture photography as I like being able to express peoples emotions in a powerful image as I feel this creates a good image and can give the viewers a message and can be open for interpretation.

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I particularly liked this shoot as I enjoyed experimenting with different colours whether that’s red , blue or even black & white. I liked being able to create a contrast of colours as this can create a message for the viewers and I feel it creates a strong image. I was very happy with my final outcomes from this shoot and felt I created some good images.

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I thoroughly enjoyed the identity shoot and project we did. I took portrait images and then cut out facial features, burned the eyes of the image and ripped or cut the image in order to adapt the image and create a new feel from the image. I enjoyed playing around with the image and being able to change and manipulate the image as I feel it completely changes the meaning of the image and makes it a more interesting image to look at.
For this shoot I looked into the artist “Rosanna Jones” who was London photographer who specialises in a blend experimental blend of art and photography and celebrates the possibilities with an image. She is known for ripping up, painting over and destroying images. Her work is aimed at examining visual identity and notions of embodiment. I wanted to use her as I liked her style of work and her reasoning behind it. I feel like I could do so much and had lots of ideas and felt like this allowed me to be very creative.

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These images were my final images from my Anthropocene project. In this project I used items which are seen as harmful to the environment and cause world wide issues for the global warming. I enjoyed experiment with using objects within my images to help adapt and enhance the portrait image. I was able to use these objects to change the view, visibility and concept behind the images.

Although my main preference within photography was portraiture photography I still explored landscape photography.

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These images are from my street photography project where I went out into St Helier and photographed people without their knowledge of me taking the image in order to capture a real time image which is not staged.

I want to explore the idea of identity in the sense of location and upbringing. I want to look at this as I think it is a big part of someone’s identity and shows where they have come from and family heritage, which shapes people to be who they are.

I’m going to develop my ideas from work by Shipla Grupta who looks at family heritage through names and has a project based on this where she presents her images split in half and reassembled to form a misaligned set of images.

Umberto Verdoliva is another artist I would like to start this project with, I specifically like his project where he layers images on top of each other to create a new meaning to both images, adding a narrative. I really like this idea of taking something apart and putting back together and creating a new narrative.

I will do this in my own project by using old family archive images and taking new images. At the end of the project I will produce a photobook with my best outcomes.

Throughout year 12, I have learnt how to use studio lighting, how to alter settings on a camera to achieve different results, and how to use photoshop and lightroom to edit my photographs. A theme I have found interesting this year is the study of Anthropocene. Within this theme I have studied multiple artists, including Darian Mederos and Naomi White, I also enjoyed making more creative edits on photoshop with these images. I found this project interesting because it combines human and nature in our current world. For this project I focused on landscape and abstract photography. I also combined the two in some of my edits to create a juxtaposition. I prefer the theme of identity over the theme of community as I can make a project that is more personal to me and my own identity, as well as my family or friends.

‘To edit these images I will enhance the muted tones in my photographs, in a similar way to the artwork by Mederos, and also darken the tones in order to provide a deeper, menacing message in relation to the theme of Anthropocene.‘

First, I lowered the brightness of my image and increased the contrast in order to create a stronger contrast between the different colours and provide darker tones to the image .I then altered the curves setting of the image to darken the shadows of the image, and to increase the brightness of the highlights within the photo. I increased the hue of the image to a blue-tone to enhance the blue hues of the image. I also increased the saturation and decreased the lightness to make the colours more vibrant and contrasting. To further bring out the blue and red tones of the image, I altered the colour balance to increase cyan-toned colours and magenta-toned colours. This makes both the blues and the reds more vibrant, creating a more juxtaposing contrast.

I also enjoyed making my final project in year 12, where I got to further explore my own identity within my family. I found it interesting to look through old family photo albums and comparing them to current times and showing the clear contrast in time. Because of this I want to make my photobook personal to me and my identity.