Merging has made my photographs appear powerful and strong, they speak words which somebody could not express, as they say pictures speak a thousand words and I do believe that.
Doing these merges of good and bad is not only showing what self harming victims go through but also showing that they could be effected at anytime in their life, could be day, could be night, could be when they are going out to see friends it could just appear without them knowing so that is why I am putting so much focus on these merging images because I do think it is important to understand what these individuals are going through.
I have decided not to merge this photograph because I feel this photograph on it's own is enough. It has a dark element to it and even though my other photographs have been merged together to create two different sides of Self Harming, I believe that this photograph did not need that creativity.
Merging together my photographs has really shown how interesting they look together. I am merging together my images because of this mirror effect which I thought would represent Self Harming in the best form as it is showcasing that not everybody knows that individuals are going through Self Harming they see a different side to them.
I want my audience members to get a feel on how Self Harming victims see themselves and what they are experience when they are seeing themselves, as a lot of the time they can not speak out about their problems and hide away from others and themselves. I feel that these images are portraying a realistic view on what Self Harming victims see about themselves and also want individuals who do not know they are Self Harming see what it is like for that victim.
These are the two photographs which I am merging together, the reason behind it is that individuals are seeing a happy person but inside she is crying and screaming out for help but no body can hear her and she is scared to open herself to somebody to gain that help she deserves. I have decided to change the colour into black and white to give it more an edgy feel to it.
I have recently been experimenting with Photoshop and I have come across merging two of my photos together. I have picked one bad one and one good one, as spoken about before I wanted to create this mirror image effect but instead of me using a direct mirror to gain this effect I thought merging them together would bring out my creativity and show the two sides of Self Harming.
I have used one photograph of my victim using her scarf to Self Harm as the bad one, what I like about this image is the eyes of my victims because they honestly tell the audience how much pain she is in, and my good photograph is of my victim putting on a necklace, it is reflecting a mirror image effect because it is showing individuals what everyone else sees (by her putting a necklace on) but then it shows us what the victim is seeing us (her self harming herself by using her scarf).
I think the photographs work well together and especially the look on her eyes they are really showing what she is feeling, I feel it is a powerful image.
You can find the merged ones together in my FINAL IMAGE
Following on from my other blog post about understanding mental illness you also have to think about the healing process of mental illness and self harming and how somebody gets to that stage within their life.
The book which helped me see the recovering healing process of mental illness was The Power of Recovery in Healing Mental Illness by Kathleen Crowley 2000 this book gave me an idea who are suffering from mental illness and the recovery which goes with healing individuals with a certain illness such as depression and self harming, it is giving other hope.
But this book also made me understand that there is a lot of healing which goes into making somebody who suffers from mental illness better it is not just something which happens over night, and even though I knew it did not happen over night I was not expecting to find out that it was more deeper process than expected.
It helped with my project because it then made me realise that mental illness and self harming will always be with the individual who is suffering no matter where they turn they will also be a victim of self harming and need to have that control to keep them on the right track.
This project has really opened up my mind about Self Harming and Mental Illness. I have spoken about how photographs have helped me see how Self Harming would be created within an image but I never posted about understanding mental illness and how I came to understand what goes through somebodies mind when they are suffering before I continued on my project journey.
A book which helped me create an understanding of mental illness was 'Understanding Mental Illness' by Missouri State Library it talks about the understanding of what actually is mental illness and the different mental illnesses which are out there that may be individuals did not know came under the category of mental illness. This book really made me acknowledge that mental illness is always around us and a lot of individuals go through some sort of mental illness throughout their lives.
Researching into mental illness and especially self harming has made me have a different thinking process of the issues which are at hand, especially reading this book and having to truly understand what someone goes through when they are suffering from a condition or an issue which is not easy to get rid of. This book really helped me gain more knowledge which I could put towards my project of Self Harming.
