Christian Sampson takes photos portraying mental illnesses. The first one is illustrating mental illnesses revolving around weight, such as anorexia; the second represents OCD, and the third portrays addiction. All these photos are black and white to represent the bleakness and dismal nature of the mental illness. The photos also use vignettes. This also displays how the "darkness" of the illness seems to be closing in, and adds to that dismal feeling. Also by using a vignette you are more likely to focus in on the subject (the female), as your eyes are drawn to where it is lighter. By having many clocks emphasises the illness, as you eyes are repeatedly focus on them. In these photos, the faces are not completely shown, therefore these photos imply that these people could be anyone and these illnesses could affect you also. In the second photo, your eyes travel down the line, which the clocks are hung from. The string (line), looks as if there is black electricity or static around. This gives the photo an eerie and dangerous feeling to it. The subject (girl) is represented as tired, illustrating how the mental illness takes a toll on her physically too. This is suggested though how messy the girls hair is, and how she does not appear to care about her appearance, but entirely on the fact the clock is not at 4 o'clock exactly. Also, the texture of the photos themselves, are rough, in turn making the photo more interesting. This portrays how rough the mental illness is to cope with and adds to the glumness of the photo. Also, there is a high contrast to add to the darkness, which in turn adds to the eerie feeling. Also, the front of the photo is blurry and the back is in focus, allowing you to focus on the subject.
In addition to this, the photo's composition makes the photo more interesting to look at. This is due to the girl being surrounded by the clocks. The clocks cover a large area of the rule of thirds and the subject is not primarily in the centre of the rule of thirds, but slightly outside it (horizontally - as the girls arm going across the left hand line vertically, and she's slightly on and out the line on the right horizonal line); vertically she covers alot of the rule of thirds (centre on the top, middle and bottom horizontally). |