Chelsea Paige is a student and photographer who currently resides in New York. She has been doing photography for five years and has collated all of her work on a site called Flickr. She gains a lot of inspiration for her work from her surroundings in New York city, observing the things around her and then working with it in her own photography work. Paige has worked with all the genres of photography ranging from portraiture to still life, however, her two main genres are both portraiture and landscape photography.
The images below are a part of series titled Mental Illness for her final project in her photography degree. She decided to take the topic of mental illness and explore it in a way explicit way, with the use of words. Each picture represents a different mental illness, and the words show the effects each individual mental illness can have on individual people. The eyes have purposefully been hidden from the camera to both, hide and protect the person's identity, as well showing that you never really know who may be suffering from a mental illness.
I chose to research and explore Chelsea Paige's work as I was interested in her use of words. She has adopted a very direct approach to the topic of mental illness her photography. Other photographers I have researched all tended to explore the topic of mental illness in a more implicit approach, allowing the viewer to decide for themselves the effects mental illnesses can have, and in some cases whether or not the photograph is actually about mental illness or not. Paige's use of words is something I would like to explore and develop within my own work, using Chelsea Paige as inspiration.
Anorexia
Anxiety
Anti-social personality disorder
Objectively, this image shows a partially nude woman covered in writing. She is wearing a black bra that creates a high contrast with the rest of her body. The woman is holding her stomach and therefore partially covering some of the words. The background is primarily black with a small section of the background behind the model being a lighter grey colour, achieved through a light behind the background. Subjectively, I think this image achieves it aim of directly making the viewers aware of the meaning behind the image through the use of words and body language. The words used give an insight into the mind of the young woman, showing how her mental illness has effected her on the inside. It is clear that the woman hasn't written on her own body, which raises the question of ownership. Is it really her who owns her body, or is it someone else? Furthermore, the use of writing brings up the question of identity for me, and whether or not the young girl really knows who she is.
Depression
Objectively, this image shows a nude woman with words covering her body. There is a high amount of contrast in the image due to the background in which there is a black border that leads to a circle of white light, in which the model is standing in the middle of. The models eyes have been cut out of the image, meaning the viewer can see from the models nose down to the bottom her torso. The model has dark hair, creating a further contrast between the light and her hair. Subjectively, I think this is a powerful image in which the pure vulnerability of the young woman is on display, through the positioning of her arms, which suggest she is trying to protect herself as much as possible. The words that cover the models arms, face and body make the viewer directly aware that the young woman suffers from a mental illness and they are the effects it is having on her a person. The use of words create both a lot of emotion in the image as well as both contrasting and accompanying the vulnerability of the woman shown through her body language.
Schizophrenia
Objectively, this image shows a man clutching his hair with his mouth open. He is topless with writing all over the top half of his body. He is stood in front of a black background with a circle of white light in the middle. The photo is in black and white giving it a high contrast between the two colours. Subjectively, I think this image either shows a man who is frustrated with his mental illness so much that he is physically venting and possibly screaming, or it shows that his mental illness is causing him a lot of pain emotionally. The words on his body represent the thoughts and feelings that accompany his mental illness. I think that the high contrast in the image, emphasises the heightened emotions of possibly rage and despair that the model is possibly feeling. This image personally makes me feel a range of different emotions, some of which match the emotions that are coming through from the image, such as fear and distress. This image is a very distressing one, an emotion which is heightened through the use of a facial expression on the mans face.
Responses
For my responses to Chelsea Paige's work I used a combination of portraiture and text to portray the emotions and feeling behind of a mental illness, just as Paige does. To shoot these images I used the studio with the white background and the studio lighting to create more defined images.
Objectively this image shows a part of a girls body covered in black writing. The top of the face and bottom of the girls body have been cut off from the picture. The image is black and white creating some contrast in the image, allowing the writing to stand out against the models skin and white bra.
Subjectively, I think this image has been fairly successful in portraying the feelings and emotions that lie within someone who suffers from a mental illness, through the use of words. Through cutting of the eyes from the picture, I have kept the subjects identity a secret, creating an ambiguous tone within the image. If I was to do this image again, I would try it on a black background with a lighter circle in the middle to create the same effect that Chelsea Paige has in her work.
Edited Responses
For these images I re-shot some my previous one's using two different models. I experimented with different body parts, the back included. I then used Photoshop to achieve the same kind of background that Chelsea Paige used in her work.
This image shows the back of a girls body with writing covering it. The background is black with a lighter circle in the middle. The subject is situated in the middle of the frame and therefore the middle of the lighter circle. The image is black and white, creating a large amount of contrast between the background, the subjects body and the black writing.
I think this image has been quite successful as the background looks more like Chelsea Paige's style than my previous responses. The image has more contrast creating darker tones allowing the middle light, as well as the figure to stand out more just as Chelsea Paige does in her work. Furthermore, using the aid of Photoshop as well as adjusting my lighting, I have been able to create a circle of light in the middle of the images to stand out against the black background. Moreover, the writing on the body stands out more compared to the previous images, allowing the words to have a bigger impact on the viewer.
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