Artists.
Sophie Calle.
Candy Jerningan
Software.
Pages
Photoshop Adobe
Lightroom.
Artists and photographers have responded to their immediate surroundings for generations but living in a national lockdown and experiencing the effects of the global pandemic has given the world a shared experience. With us all dealing with these unusual circumstances differently I've decided over the next 4 weeks, I will documented my own experiences in this unusual time.
Hold Still.
Critical Link 1.
Sophie Calle
I decided to look at the work of Sophie Calle as I thought her work exposing human vulnerability would help inspire my own work depicting and recording the daily struggles of developing an eating disorder during our national lockdown. Although she drew her work from strangers I will be taking my work from my own personal experiences i.e. tracking my meals visually threw photos and by writing down my daily food intake and calorie count.I also wanted to include some of her photography techniques like her compositional work with the ranges of light and dark and black and white, as well as her camera angles. I like how her work isn't particularly technical but records the raw environment she is in. Making what she sees we see which is how i want my work to come across. Everything I record I want to be natural and unedited
My work.
8 days of my meals recorded
Over the past 8 days I've visually recorded all of the meals that I've had, tracking my eating patterns during my recovery time from Anorexia Nervosa, an eating disorder. I've tried to use different elements like the use of black & white and the dodge & burn tool as well as other compositional techniques to help capture the raw data I've photographed. Whilst making sure I've incorporated Sophie Calle's ability to capture peoples private moments and bring their stories to life, in my case it is the overwhelming struggle of facing food. I particularly wanted to make sure that everything you see is what I had and not to misinform you by showing less than i would have or more as i wanted everything to be communicated. So all the photos are natural and unedited.
Food Diary.
With calorie count.
Tuesday 16th, February 2021
09:00
One thing I noticed through out the week was that there was a lot of repetition with the foods that I ate. For example, 6 of my meals where the same cereal, Bran flakes. I think this was because I could control it. The portion size, the amount of cereal and milk where all weighed before being put into the bowl. As well as it being low in calories, fats and flavour makes me feel like I'm not engorging. I find its more important to me that I'm consuming less calories then the actual food. And so this is my safe food.
Monday 15th, February 2021
12:07
This was the best meal of the week for me as I felt content with what I was eating. It contained no fear foods and was good for me, as it was full with vegetables' and fruit. Even though the portion size was small I felt comfortable eating it.
Thursday 18th, February 2021
18:34
This was a particularly hard meal for me to have as it involved a lot of food I can't eat like cheese, mince meat and regular spaghetti pasta. Although the cheese and mince where swapped for the lowest calorie versions of themselves it was still quite a challenge mentally to have to eat.
Critical Link 2.
Candy Jernigan.
Candy looks at overlooked things and transforms them into something entirely different, making you look at them with different eyes. I used this as inspiration and took really up close, harsh and somewhat scary photos of foods like raisins or rice, so that they are taken out of context. I then thought I could pair this with another photo adjacent to it taken from a further distance exposing how small and insignificant it is, really making you see it in a different light.
Contact Sheet.
Photographs.
Inspired by Candy Jernigan's work I decided to photograph somewhat overlooked items ( in my case rice and raisins) and taking them out of context and presenting them in different ways. I did this by taking photos of then from different viewpoints. Close up, making it seem more intense and intimidating representing how I see and feel towards them. And then from a distance to show how small and insignificant they actually are. I achieved this by using a micro-lens to capture all the details of the items to further emphasise this.
Slide across.
Slide across,
Slide across.
Development.
I decided to mount up the images of the foods to further add to the solemn feel that this project has when trying to communicate the serious issue I am highlighting. I think presenting them in this way adds a pensive and open environment. I also decided to add the measurements to further emphasise the significant and overwhelming difference in size, intensity and weight.
