essay;

Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?

Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2015:2).

My study explores and raises the issues of different mental health issues within teenagers and intends to show how it can make you feel if you deal with anxiety or depression from a young age and the effects it has on your everyday life and how it may affect your future and relationship with others around you. This area interests me as so many people around you to tend to be suffering from these issues and it’s so important to realise how many people may be dealing with personal problems and how it both effects them individually and also people near them, such as family and friends. Through photography you see how these mental issues are real and in some cases very serious and the effect it has on teenagers. In my study I’m analysing the work of Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they both raise awareness of mental health issues in different ways and how our mind is detached from our real body, as it’s not there with you 100% and not functioning properly, as well as you feeling depersonalised from yourself. Edward Honaker presents his mental state by taking simple full body portraits of himself around his house and includes many self-portraits to tell his story, he must do this by using a tripod and then later edit all his images by blurring his face and masking his identity that represents his mental state and that’s how he shows this topic through his work, almost making him look disconnected from his mind and body. On the other hand Gabriel Isaak interprets and presents mental health in a more digital way and uses far more editing to show mental health. Most of his images are taken in extremely open spaces (mostly with an all white or blue background) this creates a sense of loneliness and sadness. He then uses silhouette figures in his images to present the mental state , usually its either two people or a group. Most of the time he uses all black silhouettes or sometimes white too with hoods on, this clearly represents people and their present or conscious state as two different figures, one being your body and the other the state of your mind and the feeling of emptiness that’s presented by the open space.

The area I chose to explore in my personal study has the closest link to is surrealism. The history of mental health in photography was perfectly presented back in the mid 1980s which was developed by Jo Spence and her work on photo-therapy. This shows that mental health has always had an important role in peoples lives as well as in photography. Jo Spence believed that “depression or anger is often so well contained, that eventually many of us become silenced or ill”. (Martin and Spence 2003: pg 24) She wanted individuals to connect with their own intimacies and struggles which is what made her begin start taking photographs. She developed photo-therapy when she got diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to used photography as a medium to work on psychological health. Her work was well known as it showed the” importance of representing the ill body, one that is affected by the invisible and the hidden”. (Dennett 2009: 7) In photo-therapy, self -portraits are a very powerful tool to express emotions. This is because we start a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings, which must be expressed. The self-portrait can be incredibly empowering. It forces us into the now, and helps us  perceive and express our essential humanity in a photograph. Jo spence used three early methods ‘therapeutic staging’, ‘mirror therapy’, and ‘Scripting’. Phototherapy is very strong way an individual can express their mental health or any other issues they’re dealing with and share it with anyone who might be going through. This made me interested in this topic as I think its important to raise awareness to all these different types of issues.  Surrealism was closely involved with contemporary developments in psychology and psychoanalysis. Freud’s work had a huge impact on psychoanalysis as he researched dreams and dream analysis to understand the cause of many mental illnesses such as depression or phobias, doing this by accessing the unconscious and figuring out what different objects or symbols in dreams represent in real life. Freud’s conception of the unconscious as a site of primal violence and conflict repressed from consciousness played a role in the work of many surrealist artists. Max Ernst and André Masson, in particular, frequently employed images of violence, his theories had a huge impact on photographers work.

examples of Andre Masson’s and Max Ernst surrealism artwork-

The first photographer I chose to study is Edward Honaker. He focuses on photographing mental health in a very personal way as he from the age of 19 was diagnosed with a mood disorder. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression. He focuses on blurring out his face in his images or tries to mask his identity away, this creates a concept of not knowing where his mind is really at or he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. You can see that all his images are in black white which creates a sad mood as there’s no colour this clearly interprets his own feelings and he does this by taking self-portraits. His own life from a very young age influenced his life which is why he takes his own images and the whole story behind his photography is about his own experience and his own mental health which makes his images so much more powerful when you know the photographer behind the work is dealing with the problems he’s photographing. To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. When he spoke about his experience he said “All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,”(Honaker 2015:1). This inspired me for the first shoot, which consisted of plain headshots which I then edited out to create a sense of depersonalization and losing yourself/personality due to mental health. Honaker’s work links it with history of mental health and surrealism art movement; it involves dreamscapes, symbolism and the unconscious mind; surrealism art changed modernism by encouraging artists to delve into their imaginations. Surrealism  was steeped in the psychoanalytic works of Sigmund Freud and centred on understanding the unconscious. This can explain certain disorders such as depression which is sometimes caused due to childhood events that remain in the unconscious and the disorder is resolved when brought back into the conscious as an adult which links into Edward’s experience as he had to deal with depression from a young age, and if it wasn’t for the surrealism art movement, photographers wouldn’t be expressing their emotional states. His work significantly links in with surrealism as the ability to evoke dream-like scenarios in photography became central to surrealism. Photo effects such as double exposure, blurring and distortion helped create images that were evocative, hallucinatory, and sometimes upsetting. The purpose of these effects was to create an image alienated from reality as if it was a window into another dimension. Edward uses many of those editing processes such as blurring for most of his images.

The second photographer I chose to study and become inspired by is Gabriel Isaak. The objective of Gabriel Isaak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life. He focuses on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression. What I find interesting about his work is the way he edits his images which makes them almost look like a dream and something that isn’t real which creates a unique idea of his mental state, like it’s all a dream. His photographs have a big emotional impact as it creates this sense of loneliness and being alone somewhere in a dream with your mind. The photographer intended to create a new vision of mental health and romanticise it instead of making it look like a scary thing to be afraid of. Both of my photographers link perfectly with each other as both of them have dealt with their own issues with depression and decided to photograph their experience in two completely different unique ways. Both of them create an idea in the audience’s mind of what it’s like to deal with these issues or if someone from the audience is already dealing with the same problems it can create a sense of feeling safe and comfort knowing there are others that feel the same and their choosing to photograph their feelings in a unique way. The photographer Gabriel Isaak inspired me for my photoshoots at home and in a very open natural environment to create an illusion of a dream as well as use more advanced photoshop skills to achieve this idea. Surrealism would have had a huge impact on Isaak’s work as surrealism derived significant inspiration from psychoanalysis, developed by Sigmund Freud to treat mental disorders. “The set of theories and techniques were established to delve into the unconscious mind It aimed to illuminate the causes of abnormal and unhealthy mental habits.” (Davis 2020:1) According to psychoanalysis, the mind is separated into the conscious and unconscious. Psychoanalytic treatment aimed to bring the repressed desires and fears of the unconscious mind to the surface. This can be seen in his photos because as mentioned before the silhouettes he uses represent the conscious mind and how it can feel detached from you body. One of the founding fathers of surrealism Andre Breton cited psychoanalysis as a gateway to restoring one’s artistic identity, liberated from conformity and social normality. (Davis 2020:1) He asserted that the application of psychoanalytic thought and automatism in art would make someone a true surrealist artist. For example Rene Magritte’s work , a famous surrealist artist in 1927, shows how mental health was presented back in the early days. This art shows most of the woman’s face cut out and dragged away from her body , unmasking what’s underneath it which looks like a solid, dark wooden texture of nothing with small pins it, implying there’s a hard material underneath her face that acts as a ‘mask’ and the texture underneath it is the woman’s mental health which is quite hidden and acting as a secret to help hide her real identity. This is really similar in how Gabriel Isaak presents mental health in his images, through using open spaces , like Magritte’s image that has an ocean, and using plain silhouettes or shadows of people to present their conscious and mental state- creating a feeling of loneliness and emptiness as your mind travels away from your body due to having a disorder.

The two artists I have studied in this project both clearly focus on presenting mental health through photography. Both of them taking aspects of surrealism into the work is seen as the conscious and unconscious mind is presented. They both show their feelings and emotions through taking images, and how they feel inside as we know their background with mental illness. They both mask their identity in some sort of way and either by blurring the faces out or just completely using silhouettes which doesn’t show a face , this creates a feeling of identity loss as a mental illness can affect your personality a lot and who you think you are. The difference between their work is that Isaak uses much more dream-like effects making them images almost look unreal because of how empty the background is , however Honaker uses his own self-portraits for his images and edited them by blurring his facial features out in different ways and in different environments. The main common theme from both of their work is sadness, as the small notes of blue shades and silhouettes indicate loneliness and sadness. Honaker only photographs himself which show him being alone dealing with his issues with no one around him, as he said , “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2015:2).

Overall I think I’ve presented my ideas and the concept of mental health very well through taking several different shoots that were inspired by my two chosen photographers. I explored how it might feel to deal with a mental illness and not really knowing how to deal with it or loosing your personality , though a simple shoot consisting of editing and blurring certain features to show uncertainty in how an individual may feel and bringing attention to the mind, as well as at home shoots to show what everyday life may be like and in big open spaces to create a sense of loneliness. I photographed an individual in a way that shows her feelings and her mental state through a series of portraits exploring her body language. I experiment with different editing techniques such as blurring out the model’s face in order to show you don’t feel like yourself when your mind isn’t working properly. A previous study I have done in my A-level photography work that links in with my personal study is the loss of identity which is when you’re not too sure what you’re doing or what you want to do when you grow up, which I achieved through edited portraits. My work will develop through editing all my images using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop and turning them from simple headshots and full body shots into a way of presenting mental health in the style of Gabriel Isaak by selecting the model’s silhouette and filling it in with a black shadow separating one figure from her body showing the state of her mind. The digital processes I like to work with are the quick selection tool, lasso tool, and the object selection tool as well as the blurring brush to achieve the final images I want. My two photographers helped me create this vision as I could see and learnt about how mental health can be presented through a visual concept and photography as its a very difficult topic to express through photos as everyone’s experience and mind is different , they made me understand how certain editing and specific environments can help in achieving spreading the message I want.

Bibliography

Davis, C ( 19 May 2020). Surrealism Art Movement: A Window into the Mind. The Collector , BA Art History (2020) ( https://www.thecollector.com/surrealism-art-movement/) Accessed 10 Feb 2022.

Dennett, T (15 April 2009). Jo Spence’s camera therapy: personal therapeutic photography as a response to adversity. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. (Volume 11, 2009.): 7-19 Issue 1: Phototheraphy and Therapeutic Photography. (Jo Spence’s camera therapy: personal therapeutic photography as a response to adversity: European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol 11, No 1 (tandfonline.com) Accessed 9 Feb 2022.

Holmes, L and Honaker, E (2015). These Photos Capture The Anguish Of Living With Depression. Huffpost (2015) (https://rocket04.jeron.je/access?ABQ6DI4E7VWA3WWSPAJTI2MV4KSCHDYY) Accessed 10 Feb 2022.

Martin, R. and Spence, J. (2003), ‘Photo-Therapy: Psychic Realism as a Healing Art?’ in Wells, L. The Photography Reader. London; Routledge

1. Research a photo-book. The book I’m choosing to study is “Help” by Daniel Butt. The story he’s trying to tell is about his experience with drugs and how it affected him. Most likely to raise awareness and show history with drugs and how differently it can influence people. He includes loads of different types of photographs, such as self portraits in black and white, and still life images in colour of pills.

2. Who is the photographer? the photographer is Daniel butt, a former student. i think he decided to make his book to raise awareness to the effects that drugs can have on a young individual and how they can change your life and make you a completely different person. he shows how using drugs affected him has a teenager and how he had to deal with stopping and the depression/ other mental illness’s he had to deal with from using them and relying on them. i think he wanted to reach everyone as the audience, as anyone can start consuming them and relying on them especially teenagers and he wanted to share his own experience. it can spread a message to other people who are dealing with the same situation or even someone whos never done drugs to show them the effects it can have.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design.

1. the book is consisted of a hard copy cover , mostly all black which creates a sad and dark atmosphere/mood about the book before you even open it which I think was done on intention.
2. Paper and ink:. He uses a mix of different papers and includes a letter in his book which creates a different texture however most of his pages are glossy. He uses both black and white images and colour this creates a nice contrast in his book when looking through it.
3. Format, size and orientation: His book includes a lot of self portraiture however a few images of objects such as pills are used too. His book is slightly bigger than a square format and his images are all different shapes and sizes which contrast with each other.
4. His book is a hard copy book, with an image wrap and its slightly smaller than an a4 sized book.
5. Cover: his front cover includes a letter press with a single word which makes you intrigued and the rest of the book is all black.
6. Title: relevant and intriguing title as it fits the mood of the book and makes you wan to know what its about.
7. Narrative: the story he’s trying to tell is about using drugs. he presented his own experience with how drugs affected him through this book and shows how they can affect you during your teenager years.
8. Structure and architecture: he develops his narrative through self portraits that show his emotions and they contrast with the images of colourful photos of pills meanwhile his images are black and white which shows how they affected him
9. Design and layout: most of his is images are on single page however some do include a double spread and he uses a letter in one of his pages.
10. Editing and sequencing: he includes a lot of juxtaposition of photographs as one page is a photo of him in black and white and the other page shows a colourful pill which contrast together, eventually as you look through on the final page there’s a letter saying he got prescribed on medication which shows how his journey with drugs ended.

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shoot 1- the first shoot I’ll be doing is using the studio and a model. I want to take some clear shots, close ups and full body shots of my model with clear two point lighting and a white backdrop with no backgrounds. I want these images to be simple and in the style of Gabriel Isaks work, so that the model is facing different sides and I want these images to be simple in order to edit a lot over them on photoshop to get clear black and white silhouette figures like Gabriels work.

shoot 2- I want my second shoot to be based in a home, I want to photograph my model facing a mirror and then edit and blur out the face. I also want to take photos of the model laying on her bed and alone in a room to show how you may spend most of your time when dealing with mental health issues. This will be more inspired in the way of Edward as most of his images are taken of himself at home.

shoot 3- my final and last shoot I want to do in a very open natural space, like a field or open beach. Taking inspiration from Gabriel Isak’s work this will represent the mental state of the individual once again. In a very large open space the individual will look quite small and alone which is how you may feel when dealing with your issues. Then i will edit them and turn the silhouettes into dark outlines

Biography; the two artists I’m studying are Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isaak. Sources and texts about them and their work;

Edward Honaker-

At the age of 19, photographer Edward Honaker was diagnosed with a mood disorder that affects about 14.8 million American adults. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression.

“All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,” the photographer told The Huffington Post. “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”

To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. And if you haven’t, you can still learn a lot from the creative’s telling snapshots.

“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.”

Gabriel Isak-

The objective of Gabriel Isak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life.

Gabriel Isak’s art entails surreal and melancholic scenes where he invites the viewer to interact with the inner world of solitary figures that symbolize our own unconscious states. He uses photography as a medium to draw and paint surreal images, minimal and graphic in its aesthetic, rich in symbolism and emotion, focusing on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression.

essay question; In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?

essay plan;

1. Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?
2. Opening quote– “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”
3. Introduction (250-500 words): my area of study is mental health thats shown through photography. The artists i will be looking at are Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they show different mental issues and feelings within the mind through their images. I will be responding to their work through showing the mental issues that teenagers go through by taking inspiration from their style of work and show it in my own way.
4. Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to mental health. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian. 
5. Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse Edward Honaker in relation to my essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
6. Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse Gabriel Isak in relation to my essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
7. Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
8. Bibliography: (in the first paragraph)

essay;

Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?

intro-“Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).

My study explores and raises the issues of different mental health issues within teenagers and intends to show how it can make you feel if you deal with anxiety or depression from a young age and the effects it has on your everyday life and how it may affect your future and relationship with others around you. This area interests me as so many people around you to tend to be suffering from these issues and it’s so important to realise how many people may be dealing with personal problems and how it both effects them individually and also people near them, such as family and friends. Through photography you see how these mental issues are real and in some cases very serious and the effect it has on teenagers. In my study I’m analysing the work of Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they both raise awareness of mental health issues in different ways and how our mind is detached from our real body, as it’s not there with you 100% and not functioning properly, as well as you feeling depersonalised from yourself. Edward Honaker presents his mental state by taking simple full body portraits of himself around his house and includes many self-portraits to tell his story, he must do this by using a tripod and then later edit all his images by blurring his face and masking his identity that represents his mental state and that’s how he shows this topic through his work, almost making him look disconnected from his mind and body. On the other hand Gabriel Isaak interprets and presents mental health in a more digital way and uses far more editing to show mental health. Most of his images are taken in extremely open spaces (mostly with an all white or blue background) this creates a sense of loneliness and sadness. He then uses silhouette figures in his images to present the mental state , usually its either two people or a group. Most of the time he uses all black silhouettes or sometimes white too with hoods on, this clearly represents people and their present or conscious state as two different figures, one being your body and the other the state of your mind and the feeling of emptiness that’s presented by the open space.

para 1- the area I chose to explore in my personal study has the closest link to is surrealism. The history of mental health in photography was perfectly presented back in the mid 1980s which was developed by Jo Spence and her work on photo-therapy. This shows that mental health has always had an important role in peoples lives as well as in photography. Jo Spence believed that “depression or anger is often so well contained, that eventually many of us become silenced or ill”. (Martin and Spence 2003: pg 24) She wanted individuals to connect with their own intimacies and struggles which is what made her begin start taking photographs. She developed photo-therapy when she got diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to used photography as a medium to work on psychological health. Her work was well known as it showed the” importance of representing the ill body, one that is affected by the invisible and the hidden”. (Dennett 2009: 7) In photo-therapy, self -portraits are a very powerful tool to express emotions. This is because we start a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings, which must be expressed. The self-portrait can be incredibly empowering. It forces us into the now, and helps us  perceive and express our essential humanity in a photograph. Jo spence used three early methods ‘therapeutic staging’, ‘mirror therapy’, and ‘Scripting’. Phototherapy is very strong way an individual can express their mental health or any other issues they’re dealing with and share it with anyone who might be going through. This made me interested in this topic as I think its important to raise awareness to all these different types of issues.  Surrealism was closely involved with contemporary developments in psychology and psychoanalysis. Freud’s work had a huge impact on psychoanalysis as he researched dreams and dream analysis to understand the cause of many mental illnesses such as depression or phobias, doing this by accessing the unconscious and figuring out what different objects or symbols in dreams represent in real life. Freud’s conception of the unconscious as a site of primal violence and conflict repressed from consciousness played a role in the work of many surrealist artists. Max Ernst and André Masson, in particular, frequently employed images of violence, his theories had a huge impact on photographers work. (Show illustration of Surrealist work of art)

Paragraph 2–

The first photographer I chose to study is Edward Honaker. He focuses on photographing mental health in a very personal way as he from the age of 19 was diagnosed with a mood disorder. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression. He focuses on blurring out his face in his images or tries to mask his identity away, this creates a concept of not knowing where his mind is really at or he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. You can see that all his images are in black white which creates a sad mood as there’s no colour this clearly interprets his own feelings and he does this by taking self-portraits. His own life from a very young age influenced his life which is why he takes his own images and the whole story behind his photography is about his own experience and his own mental health which makes his images so much more powerful when you know the photographer behind the work is dealing with the problems he’s photographing. To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. When he spoke about his experience he said “All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,”(Honaker 2018:1). This inspired me for the first shoot, which consisted of plain headshots which I then edited out to create a sense of depersonalization and losing yourself/personality due to mental health. Honaker’s work links it with history of mental health and Surrealism art movement; it involves dreamscapes, symbolism and the unconscious mind; Surrealism art changed modernism by encouraging artists to delve into their imaginations. Surrealism  was steeped in the psychoanalytic works of Sigmund Freud and centred on understanding the unconscious. This can explain certain disorders such as depression which is sometimes caused due to childhood events that remain in the unconscious and the disorder is resolved when brought back into the conscious as an adult which links into Edward’s experience as he had to deal with depression from a young age, and if it wasn’t for the Surrealism art movement, photographers wouldn’t be expressing their emotional states. His work significantly links in with surrealism as the ability to evoke dream-like scenarios in photography became central to surrealism. Photo effects such as double exposure, blurring and distortion helped create images that were evocative, hallucinatory, and sometimes upsetting. The purpose of these effects was to create an image alienated from reality as if it was a window into another dimension. Edward uses many of those editing processes such as blurring for most of his images.

Paragraph 3 Structure (500 words) : 

The second photographer I chose to study and become inspired by is Gabriel Isaak. The objective of Gabriel Isaak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life. He focuses on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression. What I find interesting about his work is the way he edits his images which makes them almost look like a dream and something that isn’t real which creates a unique idea of his mental state, like it’s all a dream. His photographs have a big emotional impact as it creates this sense of loneliness and being alone somewhere in a dream with your mind. The photographer intended to create a new vision of mental health and romanticise it instead of making it look like a scary thing to be afraid of. Both of my photographers link perfectly with each other as both of them have dealt with their own issues with depression and decided to photograph their experience in two completely different unique ways. Both of them create an idea in the audience’s mind of what it’s like to deal with these issues or if someone from the audience is already dealing with the same problems it can create a sense of feeling safe and comfort knowing there are others that feel the same and their choosing to photograph their feelings in a unique way. The photographer Gabriel Isaak inspired me for my photoshoots at home and in a very open natural environment to create an illusion of a dream as well as use more advanced photoshop skills to achieve this idea. Surrealism would have had a huge impact on Isaak’s work as surrealism derived significant inspiration from psychoanalysis, developed by Sigmund Freud to treat mental disorders. “The set of theories and techniques were established to delve into the unconscious mind It aimed to illuminate the causes of abnormal and unhealthy mental habits.” (ref source) According to psychoanalysis, the mind is separated into the conscious and unconscious. Psychoanalytic treatment aimed to bring the repressed desires and fears of the unconscious mind to the surface. This can be seen in his photos because as mentioned before the silhouettes he uses represent the conscious mind and how it can feel detached from you body. One of the founding fathers of surrealism Andre Breton cited psychoanalysis as a gateway to restoring one’s artistic identity, liberated from conformity and social normality. (ref source) He asserted that the application of psychoanalytic thought and automatism in art would make someone a true surrealist artist. For example Rene Magritte’s work , a famous surrealist artist in 1927, shows how mental health was presented back in the early days. This art shows most of the woman’s face cut out and dragged away from her body , unmasking what’s underneath it which looks like a solid, dark wooden texture of nothing with small pins it, implying there’s a hard material underneath her face that acts as a ‘mask’ and the texture underneath it is the woman’s mental health which is quite hidden and acting as a secret to help hide her real identity. This is really similar in how Gabriel Isaak presents mental health in his images, through using open spaces , like Magritte’s image that has an ocean, and using plain silhouettes or shadows of people to present their conscious and mental state- creating a feeling of loneliness and emptiness as your mind travels away from your body due to having a disorder.

Conclusion (500 words) :

Start by comparing two artists; similarities/ differences. common themes, influence of surrealism/ psychoanalysis etc

“Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).

Overall I think I’ve presented my ideas and the concept of mental health very well through taking several different shoots that were inspired by my two chosen photographers. I explored how it might feel to deal with a mental illness and not really knowing how to deal with it or loosing your personality , though a simple shoot consisting of editing and blurring certain features to show uncertainty in how an individual may feel and bringing attention to the mind, as well as at home shoots to show what everyday life may be like and in big open spaces to create a sense of loneliness. I photographed an individual in a way that shows her feelings and her mental state through a series of portraits exploring her body language. I experiment with different editing techniques such as blurring out the model’s face in order to show you don’t feel like yourself when your mind isn’t working properly. A previous study I have done in my A-level photography work that links in with my personal study is the loss of identity which is when you’re not too sure what you’re doing or what you want to do when you grow up, which I achieved through edited portraits. My work will develop through editing all my images using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop and turning them from simple headshots and full body shots into a way of presenting mental health in the style of Gabriel Isaak by selecting the model’s silhouette and filling it in with a black shadow separating one figure from her body showing the state of her mind. The digital processes I like to work with are the quick selection tool, lasso tool, and the object selection tool as well as the blurring brush to achieve the final images I want. My two photographers helped me create this vision as I could see and learnt about how mental health can be presented through a visual concept and photography as its a very difficult topic to express through photos as everyone’s experience and mind is different , they made me understand how certain editing and specific environments can help in achieving spreading the message I want.

I was able to select my final outcomes through using Lightroom and photoshop, once I know what images I wanted to use through rating them, I began to edit images I knew would go perfectly together and I was then left with my final images , ready for my personal study to be presented with these images. The more photos I took the more ways I started to think of in order to present my subject which helped me putting this project together. once I started reading into my chosen artists background and history I got a better understanding of how people who have to dealt with mental illness from a young age started using photography in order to share their experience and capture their feelings through photographing themselves which I thought was really important and really inspired me to chose quite a heavy topic for my personal project as I think mental health plays a huge part of your identity and shapes you into the person you are in the future, which all my final outcomes show successfully. as once said “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).

Bibliography

Dennett, T (15 April 2009). Jo Spence’s camera therapy: personal therapeutic photography as a response to adversity. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling. (Volume 11, 2009.): 7-19 Issue 1: Phototheraphy and Therapeutic Photography. (Jo Spence’s camera therapy: personal therapeutic photography as a response to adversity: European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling: Vol 11, No 1 (tandfonline.com) Accessed 9 Feb 2022.

Martin, R. and Spence, J. (2003), ‘Photo-Therapy: Psychic Realism as a Healing Art?’ in Wells, L. The Photography Reader. London; Routledge

Harvard system of referencing; example

Bibliography;

Pardo, A. (2018), Masculinities; Liberation through photography. London: Prestel Verlag

In-text referencing;

“these larger-than-life images are imbued with strength, power and desire, simultaneously tinged with a certain vulnerability.” (Pardo 2018:110)

modernism-

Modernism in the arts refers to the rejection of the Victorian era’s traditions and the exploration of industrial-age, real-life issues, and combines a rejection of the past with experimentation, sometimes for political purposes. Stretching from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, Modernism reached its peak in the 1960s; Post-modernism describes the period that followed during the 1960s and 1970s. Post-modernism is a dismissal of the rigidity of Modernism in favor of an “anything goes” approach to subject matter, processes and material.

he shift to modernism can be partly credited to new freedoms enjoyed by artists in the late 1800s. Traditionally, a painter was commissioned by a patron to create a specific work. The late 19th century witnessed many artists capable of seizing more time to pursue subjects in their personal interest.

Modernism reached its peak with Abstract Expressionism, which began in the late 1940s in the United States. Moving away from commonplace subjects and techniques, Abstract Expressionism was known for oversized canvasses and paint splashes that could seem chaotic and arbitrary.

POST-MODERNISM

Post-modernism, as it appeared in the 1970s, is often linked with the philosophical movement Poststructuralism, in which philosophers such as Jacques Derrida proposed that structures within a culture were artificial and could be deconstructed in order to be analyzed.

Post-modern work in the 1970s was sometimes derided as “art for art’s sake,” but it gave rise to the acceptance of a host of new approaches. Among these new forms were Earth art, which creates work on natural landscapes; Performance art; Installation art, which considers an entire space rather than just one piece; Process art, which stressed the making of the work as more important than the outcome; and Video art, as well as movements based around feminist and minority art.

Post-modern art has since become less defined by the form the art takes and more determined by the artist creating the work. American artist Jenny Holzer, who came to prominence in the 1970s with her conceptual art made from language, embodies this model.

modernism and postmodernism were both movements that emerged from an analysis of events within the modern period from the perspective of the values of the Enlightenment.

Pictorialism;

Pictorialism first was invented in 1902, however the concept also started to develop in the 1880s and onwards. It was considered an art movement that was the strongest from 1885 to 1915.The key characteristics of pictorialism was putting Vaseline on lens, scratching negatives, mixing chemicals in the dark room, and it was meant to look hand made to make it look like a natural painting. The key idea was to separate photography as an art form from photography used towards various scientific and documentary purposes.

The artists associated were Alfred Stieglitz, Peter Henry Emerson, Julia Margaret Cameron and ” the brotherhood of the linked ring”.

Romanticism was a big influence and “allegorical paintings”, this helped to develop the concept of pictorialism.

The methods/ processes involved were hand-made processes, this was all done to make the images look very similar to paintings and make them look natural with natural manipulation. r Consequently artists would stay focused on the choice of photo papers and chemical procedures capable of enhancing or reducing certain effects. For the same reason, some pictorialists were using special lenses to produce softer images, but the softening of focus during post-processing was certainly the most common practice.  For instance, pictorialists were very fond of using gum bichromate – it was an unusual strategy which involved multiple layers of chemicals and resulted in a painterly image resembling watercolour paintings. Another favourite procedure of pictorialists was an oil print, which was quite useful since it allowed photographers to be selective and manipulate the lighter areas of print while keeping the darker parts intact. Besides these marginalized approaches, pictorialists used to rely on more common yet artistic enough practices, such as cyanotype or platinum print.

REALISM/ STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period; 1915

Key characteristics / conventions; it was meant to show photography as a new modern art, the images were meant to be taken in sharp focus, with no manipulation with a clearly focused camera.  Straight photography is also synonymous with pure photography, since both terms describe the camera’s ability to faithfully reproduce an image of reality.

Straight photography emphasizes and engages with the camera’s own technical capability to produce images sharp in focus and rich in detail. The term generally refers to photographs that are not manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it.

Artists associated; Paul Strand , Edward Western was his inspiration from the previous art movement. “The Steerage”- Alfred Stieglitz then switched to straight photography from pictorialism.

Key works; many artists took inspiration from Picasso, as his paintings were very abstract.

Methods/processes; framing the images.The term generally refers to photographs that are not manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it.

Contrast between pictorialist’s and realist’s;

Pictorialists were photographs who typically made on orthomatic dry plates, with emulsion speed at what would be by today’s standards somewhere between ISO 5 and 10. Mood was far more important than sharpness. The lenses used were capable of reasonably sharp results when well stopped down, but often the photographers of the day did not enjoy the advantages of bright light and stable objects so that they were forced to use wider apertures, where lens performance was considerably degraded.

The Realists, in contrast, were dedicated to creating photographs that were as sharp as possible, typically using large format sheet film cameras and very small apertures to maximize depth of field and sharpness. Most, though not all, were landscapes, usually of the American West. The Realists believed photography to be a totally new art form, NOT a tool or technique for prior forms of art.

‘Fixing the shadows’, we started by watching a documentary ’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1. Which was about the history of photography. This allowed us to gain a richer insight into how cameras and photography developed over time , and all the different unique techniques that were used before professional cameras were developed. It showed us how when one artist developed a new idea about how to take photos, a few moths or years later a new artist worked from their work and developed even more techniques and processes from that. Every time a new process was developed it had a completely different meaning around photography and tried to present images in many different ways. I will talk about some of these early processes in this essay.

Camera Obscura-

Photography first started to develop and get attention in late 1820s , in France. However the earliest known written account of a camera obscura was provided in 400BC. It was light from an illuminated object that passed through a pinhole into a dark room created an inverted image of the original object. In the 18th centry, a concept/ process was disovered- the camera obscura. This is an optical device which is the ancestor of modern cameras. From the 17th century onwards some artists used it as an aid to plotting compositions. Essentially the camera obscura consisted of a lens attached to an aperture on the side of a darkened tent or box. It is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. “Camera obscura” can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in which an exterior image is projected inside.

A visual representation of how it worked;

John Nicéphore Niepce

Nicéphore Niépce, in full Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce, (born March 7, 1765.France—died July 5, 1833, Chalon-sur-Saône), French inventor who was the first to make a permanent photographic image.

When lithography became a fashionable hobby in France in 1813, Niépce began to experiment with the then-novel printing technique. He sought a way to provide images automatically. He coated pewter with various light-sensitive substances in an effort to copy superimposed engravings in sunlight. From this he progressed in April 1816 to attempts at photography which he called heliography(sundrawing), with a camera. He recorded a view from his workroom window on paper sensitized with silver chloride but was only partially able to fix the image.

Louis Daguerre + Daguerreotype 

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. 

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.

In contrast to photographic paper, a daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy.The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…

Numerous portrait studio’s opened their doors from 1840 onward. Daguerreotypes were very expensive, so only the wealthy could afford to have their portrait taken. Even though the portrait was the most popular subject, the daguerreotype was used to record many other images such as topographic and documentary subjects, antiquities, still lives, natural phenomena and remarkable events.
European daguerreotypes are scarce. They are scattered in institutional and private collections all over the world. Many aspects of the daguerreotype still need to be discovered. They can help us to understand the impact of photography on Europe’s social and cultural history.

The process;

The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The process required great care. The silver-plated copper plate had first to be cleaned and polished until the surface looked like a mirror. Next, the plate was sensitized in a closed box over iodine until it took on a yellow-rose appearance. The plate, held in a lightproof holder, was then transferred to the camera. After exposure to light, the plate was developed over hot mercury until an image appeared. To fix the image, the plate was immersed in a solution of sodium thiosulfate or salt and then toned with gold chloride.

Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes ranged from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. Modifications to the sensitization process coupled with the improvement of photographic lenses soon reduced the exposure time to less than a minute.

HENRY FOX TALBOT and Calotype;

William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries.

What did Henry Fox Talbot do?

In 1851 Talbot discovered a way of taking instantaneous photographs, and his “photolyphic engraving” (patented in 1852 and 1858), a method of using printable steel plates and muslin screens to achieve quality middle tones of photographs on printing plates.

He called his process “calotype”. The original negative and positive process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, the calotype is sometimes called a “Talbotype.” This process uses a paper negative to make a print with a softer, less sharp image than the daguerreotype, but because a negative is produced, it is possible to make multiple copies. The image is contained in the fabric of the paper rather than on the surface, so the paper fibers tend to show through on the prints. The process was superceded in the 1850s by the collodion glass negative.

Richard Maddox and The Gelatin or Dry Plate photographic process;

Richard Leach Maddox was an English photographer and physician who invented lightweight gelatin negative plates for photography in 1871. This involved the coating of glass photographic plates with a light sensitive gelatin emulsion and allowing them to dry prior to use.

. He combined silver bromide with “vegetable gummy matters” (lichen, linseed, quince), and “starchy substances” (rice, tapioca, sago). “Often I fancied I was just within the doorway when the door closed, and other plans had to be tried. Finally he tried gelatin from a packet of Nelson’s Gelatine Granuals.

Maddox prepared a number of plates, exposing by contact-printing them from other negatives, and putting each through a different exposure trial. “The resulting prints were very delicate in detail, of a colour varying between a bistre and olive tint, and after washing dried to a brilliant surface”. He later described trials on “out-of-door subjects”, but it was “impossible to get some laurels depicted in anything more than black and white” (i.e. without gray-scale tones).

The advantages of the dry plate were obvious: photographers could use commercial dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom. Negatives did not have to be developed immediately. Also, for the first time, cameras could be made small enough to be hand-held, or even concealed: further research created ‘fast’ exposure times, which led to ‘snapshot’ photography (and the ‘Kodak’ camera with roll film), ultimately paving the way for cinematography.

George Eastman + Kodak

In 1888, inventor George Eastman invented a game-changing kind of dry, transparent, flexible photographic film that came in a roll. The film was designed for use in Eastman’s newly designed, user-friendly Kodak cameras.

 His first camera, the Kodak, was sold in 1888 and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Later he offered the first Brownie camera, which was intended for children. By 1927, Eastman Kodak was the largest U.S. company in the industry.

Who Was George Eastman?

In 1880, George Eastman opened the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. His first camera, the Kodak, was sold in 1888 and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Later he offered the first Brownie camera, which was intended for children. By 1927, Eastman Kodak was the largest U.S. company in the industry. Eastman committed suicide in 1932.

Early Life and Education 

Named after his father George Washington Eastman, George Eastman was born on July 12, 1854, in Waterville, New York. George Sr. had started a small business school, Eastman Commercial College, in Rochester, where he moved the family in 1860. But he died suddenly when Eastman was eight. One of young Eastman’s two older sisters was wheelchair-bound from polio and died when Eastman was 16.

Eastman’s mother, Mary, took in boarders to support the family, and Eastman dropped out of high school at age 14 to add to the family income. He began as a messenger and office boy for insurance companies and studied accounting at home to qualify for a higher salary. He eventually landed a job as bookkeeper at the Rochester Savings Bank.

Inventions

When Eastman was 24, he planned to visit Santo Domingo and, on the advice of a colleague, decided to document the trip. But the photography equipment alone was enormous, heavy and costly. He bought all the equipment, but he never took the trip.

Instead he began researching how to make photography less cumbersome and easier for the average person to enjoy. After seeing a formula for a “dry plate” emulsion in a British publication, and getting tutelage from two local amateur photographers, Eastman formulated a gelatin-based paper film and a device for coating dry plates.

Kodak Photography

He resigned from his bank job after launching his fledgling photography company in April 1880. In 1885, he headed to the patent office with a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had developed. This allowed cameras to be smaller and cheaper.

Eastman also came up with the name Kodak, because he believed products should have their own identity, free from association with anything else. So in 1888, he launched the first Kodak camera (a few years later, he amended the company name to Eastman Kodak).

The company slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest,” which meant the camera was sent in to the company after the 100 exposures on the roll of film had been used; they developed it and sent it back to the customer. 

The Brownie Camera

The Brownie camera was launched in 1900 to target new hobbyist photographers — children — and with its $1 price tag, it also became a favourite of servicemen. Eastman supported the military in other ways as well, developing unbreakable glass lenses for gas masks and a special camera for taking pictures from planes during World War I.

The Original Kodak was fitted with a rotating barrel shutter unique to this model. The shutter was set by pulling up a string on top of the camera and operated by pushing a button on the side of the camera. After taking a photograph, a key on top of the camera was used to wind the film onto the next frame.

An example of autochrome from the archive;

For my personal study, the artists i have chosen to research and take inspiration from are Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as I’m looking into portraying mental illness through photography. I thought they were the perfect photographers to looking into as they both photograph mental health in their way in the theme of identity.

mood board of Edward Honaker’s photography;

Edward Honaker

mood board of Gabriel Isak’s photography;

analysis;

Edward takes all his images in black and white. I think that this creates a very sad and depressing atmosphere as there’s no colour to his photography, however, that’s the idea he’s trying to create as he’s hiding and blurring out his identity. he uses a simple tonal range, from basic greys all around the background to very dark tones around him and the mirror, this really draws you into him as the contrast between the tones stands out. his photo is taken using natural lighting as you can see there real light coming in through the window behind him, as seen in the mirror. this makes his image seem more natural and simple as there’s no set-up that needed to be done. the composition of the mirror is directly in the middle of the image but slightly to the left which might represent his mental state as it’s slightly off and not in the perfect position. you can tell that either someone took a photo of him or maybe he had a timer set up on his camera with a tripod and did it himself. the background is very simple, just plain wallpaper in a house, showing a slight section of the door. Edward then proceed to edit his image and blur his face out, or he could have even done it with a very slow shutter speed and could have moved his head quickly to create a blurry concept. he does this to his images to blur his identity out and show his mental state, as he doesn’t know quite who he identifies and isn’t confident in how he feels. I think that his photos are very powerful as many individuals are confused about who they really are or who they want to be, and he shows this in a very clever way by blurring his face out. t makes the rest of his image look so put together however when it comes to him, his face is blurry which creates this sense of confusion in his own identity and showing this by standing in front of a mirror was a powerful idea as it looks like he’s reflecting on who he really is by looking at himself.

Gabriels photography is very unique. I think he presents the theme of identity and mental health in such a clever way and links them perfectly. in this chosen image he uses an abstract way of showing identity through using two figures. he uses both black and white and colour in his photography however in this image he focuses on black and white. the contrast is so sharp between the two figures in this image which makes it so interesting. it creates this idea of two different identities that everyone has, like your inner mental health (the black figure checking in on you) and then who you show to be on the outside and how you present yourself to the world being the white figure. his images are very powerful as both figures are sad and it leaves the viewer to the interpretation of what emotions he’s trying to present. the composition of the two figures is right in the centre and he left a big space on top of his image, this draws you right to the figures. he takes his images using a setup lighting equipment to achieve these strong contrasts but usually edits a lot of his images on software to achieve these solid colours and edit the figures digitally sometimes too. his images aren’t blurry which suggests he uses a very quick shutter speed to capture his images in one quick clean snapshot. I think he achieves what he wants to show, people have many personalities and identities and the sad state of their links with mental health.

The artist I have chose to study is William Klein and looking at his interview with David Campany, from his book ‘So present, so invisible‘.

my chosen quotes from his interview that I thought were interesting;

in the interview William didn’t talk about the image I have chosen but I think they were interesting as they fit into his work as he has previously photographed children during a war as well as many photographs of famous models or individuals for when he worked for Vogue.

“we didn’t know too much about the war in Vietnam, it was horrible”

“when i was in the army i won the war”

” i had one camera and two lenses”

1. TECHNICAL, VISUAL, CONTEXTUAL, CONCEPTUAL 

Technical- the lighting in Williams photograph of the two boys is natural and taken in daylight, as you cant see any set up lighting or flash to capture the picture. He used a nice level of control to show the contrast between the dark and light areas in his photo, as you can see some very dark, basically black tones (like their clothes) and then very light grey-white tones mostly seen in the background and the two main boy’s skin. Their positioned in the centre of the image to make them the main focus on the image and very little background activity which makes the viewer directly aware of the boys and the gun one is holding as the gun is positioned right in the middle and in front of the two boys which makes it stand out. I would say the image is slightly over exposed as it has such a sharp tonal range which makes the image appear sad as it’s in black and white and gives it quite a gloomy/sad atmosphere. The shutter speed must have been quite high as the image isn’t blurry which quickly captured the image. Using his quote and what he said “i had one camera and two lenses” shows that even with such little camera equipment he still captured a powerful image to try tell a story of two boys during a war, as he has a lot of experience being in one.

Visual- This image isnt taken in colour, it’s in black and white which fits the atmosphere of the image a lot and makes it more dull as it was taken during a horrible event, therefore using colour most likely wouldnt be appropriate. It has a range of light and dark tones to create a nice sharp contrast and as its a photo telling a story there isnt any texture, lines or shapes to it as its a portrait photo.

Contextual- I think this image adds a lot of value in Williams work, as he himself was involved in a war which he mentioned in his interview and he said “we didn’t know too much about the war in Vietnam, it was horrible”. This explains why he probably wanted to photograph two little boys during one , holding a gun which can make the viewer slightly uncomfortable to look at as it’s not everyday you see a young child holding such a violent object. It contrasts between an innocent human and a violent object which makes you question why he’s holding one. In some way maybe William wanted to show his young self through taking this image as he spent such a huge time of his life at war.

Conceptual- I think William wanted to show his experience at war , “when i was in the army i won the war”, through photographing two innocent boys holding a gun, which shows that during these horrible times even children got influenced , and in the image you can see the boy smiling and laughing when holding the gun as he probably doesn’t know the harm it can cause or what the true intentions of a war is. This creates this really strong contrast between the two things as you don’t see children just casually holding guns. It can also show that these boys look up to men, like William at war as they’re fighting for them and they’re just trying to be like them. However during this war, that might have been the last image took of the boys before the war begun , which William maybe wanted to do.