Assignment 4
Diving for pearls
"Authenticity. Cinematic. Communication. Depiction. Dialectic. Documentary. Experience. Gaze. Identity. Information. Juxtaposition. Photo-essay. Truth. Witness."
"Typically, photographs depict profuse amounts of information, a multitude of things..."
"What surrounds the point of interest modifies how we 'read', perceive and construct meaning from the photograph. Details and fragments that envelop your main subject perform a contextualizing role and can impart nuance to a photograph's interpretation."
"Create a series of thematically related photographs based on your circumstances, interests, and surroundings."
Living with Anorexia and its consequences
I took a lot out of this assignment and a lot of the key words stood out to me in terms of what I wanted my project to show. I've always had a fascination for photo-journals and their authenticity. Photos are a window in time and can also be a window into someones life and experiences.
The theme of my photo-essay is "Living with anorexia and its consequences". My experience the last 3 years has been an... interesting one, and I couldn't think of anything I wanted to document more than whats been my circumstance, surroundings and life the last couple years. I wanted to be authentic about the disorder, allow the viewer to be a witness to it and hopefully, deliver a strong message. Anorexia, and eating disorders in general, are incredibly tough topics. Nobody talks about the strange habits of the disorder and unless you've experienced it yourself or was told by someone whose experienced it, I'm sure half these habits wouldn't make sense.
I chose to create a chaotic and repetitive photo-cloud because thats exactly what struggling with an eating disorder is. The different boarders were intended to enhance this effect by trying to fit into societies different standards as well as the fluidity in an always changing body. The choice to not spot my photos was meant to represent not only the overall messiness of the illness but also how hard it is to do anything with an eating disorder. Because as this gallery is about an experience with anorexia, it was also created by someone currently struggling with it. The photo-journal is meant to reflect the eating disorder in any possible way.
Each photo has a title and most have snippets from articles about anorexia, with a link to the source.
