I'm Fine

a photography project based around the world of disabilities. Blog copyright Rebecca Dann. Web design created by Selin Savvides

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Tutorial with Natasha

My second tutorial was with Natasha. I described where I was at so far with my project and the idea of me wanting to get a cast made of myself to go along with my image. Realistically I wanted a life size version of myself but Natasha mentioned that Asda are doing a thing at the moment where they can create mini 3D models of people. So I decided to look into it because it's something that I find really interesting. Maybe email them and say that you want to be all white with no coloured clothes on so you're like a statue.

Another thing that was mentioned was the statue, The Kiss by Rodin which is at the V&A which was made based on a small model and then cast bigger. I could look into this online as well as going to the V&A to see it in person as part of my primary research.

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Fashion collaboration - Twitter Takeover

So as I posted about before, I had agreed to do the twitter takeover for the collaboration between photography students and the fashion students. I used my phone to take the photos so that I could live tweet throughout the day. 

Our course photography is @photofarnham and I connected myself to the twitter so that I had easy access all day from my phone.

The day was really interesting because there was always something happened, The big studio was booked out and on both sides there were shoots happening. I made sure that I kept going between the two to document them and it was so much fun because each one was so different! 

The first shoot was with Madalina and the fashion student she was working with wanted her images on a white backdrop but she wanted her dress and make up dramatised. So the student did her own make up and then Madalina had control of how the images were shot. She would advise her where to walk and where to look. She was also really good at thinking of some creative action shots to emphasis the dress.

Another shoot that was happening next door was with Emily who was working with a student who’s dress was based on architecture. She asked Zoe to be the model and Emily had Rhea as her assistant. This shoot was with a grey backdrop and Emily used the large reflectors so that the model was fully lit. The fashion student brought in some photos of make up and hair that she would like the model to have and Emily supplied the make up. It was a really interesting shoot because there were some really unconventional poses put into action which really gave a fashion feel to it. 

Suddenly we heard loads of banging going on in the shoot next door so I decided to go and check it out. There were balloons and party poppers going off and confetti being thrown. 

This is one thing that I love about photo shoots, when they're just so active and fun to do. Trying to get the timing right is always really interesting because you have to try and sync up when the things are being thrown or popped to when the flashes will go off and the shutter goes off. Sometimes it doesn't always sync up and you get nothing in your shot. It is always a good idea to come prepared with loads of props because it can sometimes take ages to get the shot and obviously you don't want to run out part way through.

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After I posted about wanting to experiment with coloured gels in the studio and also possibly working with other people with disabilities I experimented with both.

Sophie has a condition called hyper-mobility, it isn’t something that is visible but it is something that effects her. I asked her to tell me about her condition so that I could experiment with image and text 

“So, I have Hypermobility Syndrome, which effects the joints mainly knees, fingers, elbows and hips. Apparently its mainly inherited, but no one in my family has it, and it's most likely from over use as a kid doing sports and stuuuuff. I was diagnosed with hyper mobility when I was about 15, and being 8/9 on the 'scale' (9 being the most/worst). I also found that I have two vertebrae in my spine that are 'punched in', just meaning that they are not in line with the rest of them. But this puts more strain on my lower back. I was born with this, and always thought it was normal to not be able to feel the bottom of your spine, but apparently not.”

I actually really struggled with using the gels, I think I got a bit cocky and thought “it’ll be fine, i’ll look at some lighting plans online and mimic them” no, it does not work like that. It ended up taking me ages to even take any photos. I didn’t like that the gels were so harshly split on Sophie’s face, the red was just so overpowering and made her look evil and that’s not what I wanted to portray at all. I wanted the images to be a bit more fashion like but I wanted them to be soft and just a lot less harsh. 

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I really like the idea of doing a book to go with prints and a text installation for this project. I was thinking of creating a little mini magazine about my condition. I could include images of myself from shoots as well as little extracts written by me about my condition and how it effects me. I was thinking of also including some images from previous shoots as well as the new ones I take. 

I feel quite self absorbed with this project but it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time so now I believe is my perfect opportunity to do it. 

I found these three different designs on Pinterest. I am really getting into graphic design at the moment and dabbled in it a little with my last project when I created the I’m Fine design with text inside of it. But I want to expand it. I am the type of person that when I look at something for too long I don’t like it anymore. So I no longer really like the design of it and want to re do it for this project. I’m not sure yet how I want it to look but I find that when I start playing around on photoshop or in design I come up with something and usually accidentally. I feel like I’m over thinking this project too much.

The three designs above that I’ve chosen are all different layouts and honestly I can’t fully decide which style I prefer. I really like the middle one that’s all black and white. I think the only issue with this is that if I were to make all my images black and white it might take some of the power away from them. My identifiers are probably my red hair so I want that in the image. It’s a representation of me rather than just my back or my disability. I chose a bright hair colour to take some of the attention off by back so by having my back and my hair showing in the image it’s showing me in all its true glory!

I kind of like the idea of wrapping text around my back, I think that would be interesting to read. It kind of forces people to see my back for a long time. Something I’ve found is that people get uncomfortable looking at it just as people get uncomfortable looking at nude images.

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Alexa Wright - ‘Skin Images’

The second series I am looking at by Alexa Wright (second of many I will explore) is this series of four images. Each photo is of an individual person with different skin diseases.

People might look at this and think “well this isn’t a disability” it is. These conditions effect these peoples everyday lives and that is a disability. This is something I want to explore also, the prejudice of what is classed as a disability and what isn’t. People are judged so much on how they look and when a disability isn’t a physical impairment, others judge and say ‘you’re not disabled’

I love the anonymously of this project. The photos do not show faces at all. The only thing that is given is a piece of text with the images. The text explains about their conditions and how it effects them on a day to day life. This is an idea I had thought about doing in the beginning of my project and as part of my previous project. I like reading different peoples stories because they're all so different and they're all different from an average everyday person without a disability. It also raises so much awareness because people don't always realise how severe some things can be to a person when it isn't ridiculously visual. 

I really like the unusual colouring of these images. The colours to me just seem so odd together but I think it works! The use of textures in the background of some of the images kind of relfects the textures on the skin of the people being photographed.

The composition for most of the images are central from either the top or the sides, I like that not all the focus is on the skin and that they’re made to look beautiful 

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While scrolling through Instagram one day, an image came up on my timeline. As someone with a disability I do follow a lot of other people in wheelchairs, mainly from America. There was a series on TV called ‘Push Girls’ where it followed the lives of a group of girls in wheelchairs and showed how they managed day to day life. I was obsessed, it was like Made In Chelsea for disabled people really. As I started following the girls from the show on social media, I came across other people with disabilities. One girl, Ali Stroker I had actually known about for some time but never really followed her career. Originally I saw her on ‘The Glee Project’ (no judging, I was a bit of a glee fan a few years ago) She was one of the first girls I’d seen in a wheelchair, with a talent for singing, its very rare to see disabled actresses and singers so I was so happy to see this! She did not win the show unfortunately but she recently was cast on Broadway in a show called Spring Awakening and is the first actress on Broadway in a wheelchair (AMAZING!).

Now I had seen a video of Ali recently because paparazzi had asked her for her opinion on the recent image of Kylie Jenner in a wheelchair (below)

A few weeks later and the first image from the series above was on instagram leading to this article, this article led to this project, and this project lead to this photographer.

I really like these images and it was actually something I had thought about trying myself but I didn’t necessarily think about doing it in my wheelchair or with the coloured backgrounds. I had just thought that I would like to do a shoot where my back was showing but the images were more fashion styled. In a way mocking the way that people are portrayed in the media. This is something I want to explore.

I do really like the images of Ali but I am still not 100% sure about the backgrounds or angles. I think if I were to do it I would play around with lighting and make it a little less harsh and a bit more seamless if possible. 

Looking at these images has made me think of the pin up style photographs and I am now wondering if that is something I could explore possibly but with disabilities. So taking the conventional poses they do but with myself and my disability on show, maybe even do some in my wheelchair.

My next step is to have a look at some pin up style photographs and maybe work with that to start with. There is something about this idea that I'm not entirely sure about though, I feel like there is more that can be done. I don't want my pictures to be too gimmicky.

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Alexa Wright - ‘I’

The first set of images I am looking at for my project is by Alexa Wright and her project from 1999 titled ‘I’. 

Natasha recommended me this photographer and I was so grateful because I find it extremely hard to find interesting images of people with disabilities. Images that don’t portray them in harsh lighting and in positions where they look mangled.

These set of images are digitally manipulated images, they are also self portraits. Each image is of Alexa but she has composed different peoples bodies and disabilities onto her own. Alexa’s aim is that people look at the images and upon realising that each image is the same person, it makes people question their perceptions of disabilities and what is seen as beautiful. While creating this project Alexa then started to realise that there was more to this project than just confronting people and their prejudices towards people with physical disabilities but also how everyone at some point senses ‘foreignness’ with their bodies and identities.

The composition of these images are very central, but with a busy setting around them. To me these images are interesting because place an everyday model in them and you probably would be distracted by the objects and settings around them, but the fact that the images are of bodies that aren’t typically seen so out there and public, you don’t get distracted. The gaze is still fully on the model rather than the surroundings.

The images were published in 1999 and to me it’s a shame that things have not progressed. These images were to challenge peoples perceptions of disabilities, and yet still there is so much prejudice and lack of understanding for people with physical disabilities.  

These images relate so well to my work in the sense of they have been created to challenge peoples perceptions which is exactly what I want to do with my images. They also are all self portraits and my images are self portraits also.

I think that the thing I love about this series is that the artist isn’t disabled. It is very rare for photographers to do projects about subjects they do not fully understand. I know that in myself I stick to my own disability because it is something that I know about and I want to raise awareness for, and although I work with children with disabilities, I still have no idea what struggles they go through daily and I will never fully understand every disability. So for a photographer without a disability, want to take an interest and challenge peoples perceptions of it is really lovely to see.

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Tutorial #1 Natasha

I had a my first group tutorial with Natasha to discuss where I was at with my idea for the resolution project. I mentioned that I wanted to carry on with what I was doing with my last project, but I was thinking of maybe photographing other people instead of myself. I also thought about making the final images more experimental, I’ve done straight photography of myself, and at college all I did was really experimental images and I miss doing that, I find it more interesting to look at and shows that a lot more time and effort went into it. The only issue is that I don’t really know WHAT I want to do. These were just little ideas I had in my mind.

Natasha could see that I was unsure about what I was doing and I knew that I didn’t this project to be too similar to what I’ve just done. Theres part of me that really regrets doing this project for my independent study. I wish I kept it aside for Resolution and just produced it on a larger scale. Natasha suggested that I should just start straight away by doing a shoot so that I could just get the ball rolling.

One thing I do know I really want to do, is to include text messages and quotes from people about myself that I hear a lot, I included it in my book for the last project but didn’t actually use it.

Another suggestion that was made is that I should look more into the text, because the little piece of text I had written inside the I’m Fine piece that I made, a lot of people dismissed it thinking it was random words I’d put in. So I could look at how to encourage more people to read the text. A book was suggested called Art and Text, so I will get that out of the library and do some research into that.

I really struggle to find photographers that I can relate my work back to, I find that work to do with disabilities is harder to find. But Natasha mentioned one, Alexa Wright who photographed people with disabilities in their stately homes, so that’s something I will look into.

Now I just need to go and just START!

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Fashion Collaboration

Last year Photography students came together with fashion students to work on a collaboration. I didn’t work on it as at the time I had no interest in studio work or fashion and when the announcement was put up about I wasn’t really thinking about being involved. I find it really hard to work in groups as I really lack the confidence in what I shoot. I worry too much about what I’m producing and fear that the images I create won't be satisfactory to the students I am shooting for. I work much better creating work for myself, not for others.

I had my tutorial with Natasha and she asked if I wanted to be a part of it this time. I said about how it wasn’t my thing and then she mentioned about how I enjoy doing sort of behind the scenes type thing, I work a lot with social media and did the twitter for our second year end of term exhibition, Hidden Oculto  I also did a twitter takeover of the UCA Photo Farnham twitter page when we did our Year 3 Workshop, ‘Best Night of Your Life’

I decided that I’d like to do this again, as I really enjoy doing it and as someone that uses twitter quite a lot (over 27.8K tweets on my personal twitter...oops) it’s something that comes quite naturally to me.

I might ask if I can do the instagram takeover on the same day. I haven’t attempted that and not entirely sure how good i’ll be at it but its an experience. 

Started tweeting from my own account today to document the first meeting process of the two groups.

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For my project I really wanted to try and explore different studio lighting and interesting ways to light my images, so far I’ve used pretty much the same thing over and over which is a plain black backdrop and a soft box. 

I do love how my previous image have come out but I was thinking about going down more of a fashion route and colourful to try and bring more life to my image.

I worked with colour gels with my group for the ‘Best Night of Your Life’ and I really loved how they worked. It’s the first time I’ve ever really worked with them so it was a new experience for me and I really enjoyed it.

The studio for me was a thing that scared me, it still does a little but I really want to get rid of that fear and make myself comfortable with how it all works and how lighting works. 

I started researching just some images with colour gels, and then I came across some with a kind of blur to them, and I think they’re really nice. I looked into how it was one and some are long exposures and some are diffusers on the lens. I used to do really experimental photography when I was at college and I loved it and I really miss doing it as I’ve only really done straight photography for a while now. So if I have a go at something like this in the studio I think it’ll be really interesting.

I’m going to do a test shoot with some models to get a feel for the lighting before I put myself into the images. I hope to do this soon so that I can start researching some more.

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On the 7th January 2016 at 7:00pm I attended the Private View of the ‘Highlights’ exhibition at The Lightbox Gallery in Woking. One of my images from my project ‘I’m Fine’ had been chosen to be shown there along with some of my fellow photography peer’s images.

I was so excited to have my image displayed and so honoured that it was one that got chosen. 

The reason I first started this project was a personal reason, it was something I wanted to do to accept my body and learn to love myself for who I am. I have always been extremely self-conscious and have never liked how I looked. But after seeing a photography project called Imperfection Project by Ayesha Jones I decided to give it a go and photograph myself. It then spiraled in to a big self exploration project and about how people perceive me from the outside and how the media promotes an ideal about the body but also how people are judged by how they look. I wanted to show how when you look at my face, you could not tell I have a disability but I have put my face and my very obvious ‘imperfection’ in one image as if to show people, it isn’t all about how we look!

On the night I became very aware how much I was putting myself out there, and I was scared. The feeling of self-consciousness came back with a vengeance and I was worried about how people would look at my images.

The turn out on the night was amazing, the students and their friends and family turned up to show their support and it was so amazing. I myself didn’t have any family come but to have other peoples parents and family friends come up to me and tell me that they really like my work and admire how brave it is meant so much to me! I think for me it’s always a lot more rewarding when strangers tell you they love your work. I felt so good about myself and my image at the end of the night and its made me so determined to produce something good with this project and hopefully continue it after University to help raise awareness.

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Lightbox Exhibition Press Article #2

A few days after the previous exhibition press article, another one was uploaded to Get Surrey. I was searching through twitter to see if there had been anymore articles released about the show and came across this one.

It says the same as the previous article with bits changed and shortened but it included more peoples images which was really good.

It got me thinking that if my image is seen by the right people, I could really help to change peoples perceptions of disabilities. It’s inspiring me more and more to be vocal in my photography and show people that we are more than just what you see at first sight.

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Calling people with disabilities!!

I am a photography student currently doing my last major project before graduating. 

I am working on a project called ‘I’m Fine’ which revolves around the world of disabilities and the struggles we face and the judgement put onto us. 

It’d be really really helpful for my research if people were willing to share their stories with me. I have an ask box and a submit box.

If you’d like to help me, please either submit photos and text or just text or just photos of yourself and then please write a bit for me including:

- What is your disability? - What struggles does your disability cause? - What are some comments you receive by people about your condition? For example, with my disability I get ‘you’re just being lazy’ a lot! 

Please reblog and spread the word <3

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Lightbox Exhibition Press Article #1

I was so pleased to find out that my work from my previous project had been one of the chosen pieces to go into an exhibition in the Lightbox gallery in Woking. It is an exhibition consisting of work from BA and MFA Photography students at UCA Farnham, and along with some of my fellow peers, my work will be on show from 7th January which I am extremely excited for.

The image that was chosen to be shown is this one:

Something that I’ve been thinking about doing is sending my image to some galleries or press in order to try and raise awareness on beauty standards in the media and challenge it with my image. So the fact that this image of myself will be in a gallery and there is a chance that press will be reviewing the show is amazing and I really hope that it’s an image that people enjoy. 

During the christmas break it was posted online, our first review of the gallery images. They reviewed the show in general and then chose a couple to talk about in some more detail and I was absolutely honoured that my photo was chosen to go on the blog page. 

http://article.artsmelange.com/highlights-from-the-university-for-the-creative-arts-farnham/