Image Bank - Issues and Observations

For this Image Bank, I have collected 30 images from the internet, displaying a range of issues as well as including street photography to portray the 'observations' side of this topic. I decided to search for issues that particularly interested me, or that I felt strongly about, as well as some that are personal. For instance, as you can see from the photographs above, a lot of them portray: Homelessness, Domestic Violence for both men and women, Mental Health Issues, Gender Equality, Equality as a whole, Addiction, Child Abuse, Racism etc. I decided at the beginning of this topic that I wanted to explore such issues that I have mentioned above, and so based my shoots around as many of them as I could within the time frame. I was particularly interested in the photography I came across advertising help for domestic violence victims, as each photographer has a unique style to how they have displayed it, some are horrific, and some are artistic. For instance, there is a photo above of a woman's face, with the google search bar covering her mouth, along with a few 'common searches' displayed underneath, for example: "Women should stay at home", this photo is highlighting the importance of gender equality, as well as the extremity of prejudice there is against women. On the other hand, I also found photos from magazines such as Vogue, where the images weren't as extreme. Such as the one above, whereby there is a woman with a variety of different colours painted on her face, in the style of a bruise. This keeps the 'beauty' within the image, but also helps the cause of domestic violence. Likewise, the last image shown above is of a woman with a full face of makeup, but the photographer has 'cracked' her skin, and reveals a cut across her nose. I came across a few of these images, all revealing a bruise or cut in different places of the face, and I think they all show how victims hide their injuries. Another issue I was also interested by, was how homelessness was portrayed through photographs. Most of the photos that I came across were portraits of a homeless person on the street with a sign, showing that that is all they had. However, I also found the first image on this post, which is of a homeless man sat on the floor alone, and probably cold. As well as, two men in suits walking by, completely ignoring the fact he's there. I think this is a powerful message displaying the issues within society, as a lot of people will walk past homeless people on the street without a thought, forgetting that they are human too.