Work Diary - Shoot 5: Addiction

Evaluation 

Moving on from Street photography and the 'observations' side of this topic. I wanted to focus more on certain social issues, the first being Addiction. Therefore, I decided to take photos on Location at home, and set up a mess of different tablets and pills on a table, along with different bottles of alcohol. For these photos, I wanted to make it look as though the two had been mixed, so I made my model hold some pills, and also spilt the 'wine' all over the table as though the model had knocked it over. I also used empty bottles of alcohol to make it look as though the person in the photos had drunk it all. Addiction is a versatile issue as people can become addicted to a lot of different things, such as tablets, alcohol, drugs, sleeping etc. Through these images, I wanted to show the extreme side of what addiction can cause, which in these images is an overdose or bad mix of tablets and alcohol. I decided to do this shoot at home instead of in the studio, as it makes it look more realistic and less staged. 

In this photo, we can see a variety of empty packets of different tablets, as well as loads of them spilled out, and some in my models hand. I took this photo without the models face in, so the main focus was on the tablets that were in their hand and spilled everywhere. I edited this photo black and white to make it more dark and sinister, but also so the photo was less bright and colourful. In this image, we can only see the tablets and not the alcohol, and that is because I wanted to take photos of them individually, as somebody can be addicted to one or the other, but I also wanted to shoot photos of them both as one could be addicted to them both, which is what makes them even more dangerous and sometimes fatal. 

In this photo, I decided to angle the camera so that we could see the model's face through the spilled wine glass, as this distorts the image but also frames the model's face. On the right side of the image we can see empty bottles of alcohol, and on the right we can see a spilled glass of red wine. I made sure the focus was on the bottles and glass, rather than on the model, as they are in the background, and I wanted the focus to be on the alcohol as that is what is addictive. Like the image above, I decided to take a few photos of just alcohol as well as some just of the tablets. In this image, the model also looks as though they are passed out, which shows the effects of what addiction can cause. 

Progression

For my next shoot, I have decided to focus on the issue of mental illness, and how it is viewed in society and what suffering with mental illness can make people feel like. I also want to learn new editing techniques to create abnormal and creative images, that will help to create the types of feelings and thoughts through overlaying different images and using different filters.