PHOTOGRAPHY

Consequences

During my photography module, i was given a poem titled, This is just to say, by William Carlos Williams.

This is just to say…

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

I was asked to experiment with the poems context with the use of my camera, producing a photograph that visually explained my own interpretation of what the poems hidden meaning was, or if it even had one.

My personal interpretation of the poem was suicide by overdose.I found the short and sharp wording to each line had notions of negativity as well as sorrow.
I interpreted the last two lines to be contradictory, the pills would end their life, and their sadness.

Journey

Another part of the photography module was to take the knowledge i had gained from the past weeks and create a series of photographs that documented a journey of my choice – within reason.

we actually had to undergo this journey with our cameras without the use of major editing – all we could do was use gray-scale, brightness, contrast and levels.

I decided to undergo a journey to the end, where i depicted a young girl choosing to end her own life – alone in the woods.

i wanted to capture the emotion that would be surrounding the girl, without the distortion of meaning from the colours that would be present, so i decided to shoot in black and white throughout the journey.

i started shooting from the initial decision, while she was getting ready to go out into the world that day, from here make-up to her clothing to her front door – as i felt that these were critical notions of the start of the journey.

i took this photographs down the Taff Trail, Morganstown, Cardiff – as i felt that it was private enough for us to carry out such an emotional journey and as it was the middle of a working day, it appeared deserted – another critical aspect these photographs needed.

As it began to rain as we started the journey, the lighting wasn’t the best, but then looking back over the photographs the rain smeared the photographs ever so slightly, adding a more sinister effect to them naturally.

When i printed of these photographs and presented them within a black papered journal, i felt quite proud of the work i had created – i finally seemed happy with my own work, it was an unusual feeling for me to go though.