Final Outcome

I repeated the process of editing for each of my inmages, tweaking each one to give it it's own individual elements and have chose to display these three images as my final outcome. I was going to submit 4 images but one of them lacked in strength in terms of professionalism, creativity and clarity. My final outcomes were put together using the influences and development I’ve gained throughout the whole project, I believe this is visually clear when looking at the 3 final photographs. My final outcome explores and expresses the difficulties, anxieties and thoughts that contamination OCD sufferers have to deal with every day. I split my outcome into three different categories of contamination OCD, ‘contamination results in harm to self or others’, ‘simple awareness that a contamination is just there’, and washing rituals as efforts to remove undesirable thoughts or ideas. I do feel as though my final outcomes display evidence of my previous research and development and they do speak what I had intended on them saying.

I will display my images side by side after printing them A2 sized matt paper and I will mount them to the wall. In terms of the repetition element, I want to make my piece interactive by repeating the sentences stated on my final pieces, onto small pieces of paper that I will then randomly place around the exhibition space so the public can read the messages over and over again resembling the motion of repetitive thoughts inside the head of an OCD sufferer.

This is a visualisation of what my pieces will look like minus the paper that I will randomly scatter around.

Final Piece Development - Next Steps

I stuck the little stickers on my model to represent her thinking she's covered in things that can contaminate others. The dots aren't spreading anywhere other than on her because in her mind it's her who is the host to all of these 'germs'.

I edited the image to make the edges darker so the center seemed brighter, highlighted and focused. I make the dots brighter and the face duller so they stood out and resembled the bright colours of the microbes that I've looked at earlier on in the project. I don't like the models sleeve being on the image, it gives the left side a large dark and unnecessary area so when I re-take this image I'll ask the model to take her jacket off so her arm is uncovered, I will then stick more dots on her so that area is covered with something other than bare skin. When re-taking the image I will make sure I stay more still to limit blurring, as well as asking the model to yet again stay as still as possible. I want the model to look more distressed and worried so I'll ask her to clench her wrists and squint her eyes are hard as possible. 

I edited the image to make it the model look grainy, I wanted it to look as though she was 'damaged' in the way that her brain isn't functioning the same as someone who perhaps doesn't have OCD. When you see a grainy image, it looks old and damaged so that is the look I was going for. I will crop it better and edit the light and contrast later but as for the content I'm happy. I do however think this photo loosk unprofessional and amateur which is probably due to the quality and the coloured dots, they make the photo look childish and thrown together, I struggle to see how else I could portray the model covered in the dots without it looking this way however. I asked my brother and my dad what they thought and none of them liked this photo, my brother said the quality wasn't good enough and my dad agreed with me by saying it looks amateur. I'm going to look through my library and pick another image to use.

I've played around with different Photoshop techniques and although they look interesting they're not professional or relevant to what I want my final piece to portray. I thing the negative image works slightly better than the two other but still not enough to follow this idea through. The negative image makes the small coloured dots seem like actual microbes because it looks as though a light is being shined upon the model to highlight the microbes, the light is the negative effect.

I chose a different image to take to the end to be my final piece, it's the one shown above. I chose this image because it's cropped better. I will manipulate the image until it reaches a desired effect of which I'd be confident in displaying along side my other 3 images which I'm still yet to create. 

I've decided to abandonne the image shown above because it isn't as strong as the other 3 due to the overlapping technique I did using Photoshop and how there are no interactive elements working between the model and the contaminatin OCD theme of 'Bugs and concerns over bug related contamination  (which is different from phobias related to insects)'. The other three images had the model interacting with a visual representative of the theme they were being shown to be suffering from for example one was covered in colourful stickers representing germs, one had bubbles, soap and water on him showing how he feels the need to always be clean and the other had paint in substitute for the vast spread of microbes existant to every aspect to daily life. 

Final Piece Development

I began by creating my brain scans and adding my own writing to them then printing them onto acetate, after this I stuck them to a window and had my model press her/his face onto the window within the frame of the acetate from the other side of the window, I had my model stand outside while I took the photo from the inside to begin with because I thought it would have narrowed the chance of glare from the natural light outside. The light was too bright, it was a horrible faded white colour, my model and brain scan were no longer crisp, they looked faded and blurred because of the light so I needed to stop so much light from getting in.

After messing around with the settings on my camera nothing seemed to be getting rid of the glare and the excessive lighting so I thought I could have an assistant hold a blanket behind the model from the outside to stop so much light from getting in, I chose to use a white sheet so my brain scan would still show up against it, this proved to be a bad idea as it seemed to even out the glare yet bring even more overall light to the image. 

To stop any lighting from inside getting to the window I made a blockage with the curtain by sticking it up to the window with tape...it looks very home made and unstable (it was) but it did seem to work slightly. 

By this point I started to panic a little as I really thought using natural light would work and I didn't consider any of these implications so I then realized that artificial light was the way forward. I suggested bringing the work inside and using the glass from a picture frame yet the risk of it braking because of how fragile some of them can be was playing on my mind. I wouldn't allow my model to press her face against fragile glass so I had to think my way around that too. I suggested that we just held the glass up next to her face as opposed to her pressing it against it and the result gave me some hope as to how I was going to pursue this idea. 

To produce the image above and others alike I needed an assistant to hold the glass in front of the models face and this just wasn't practical as my assistant wasn't a real photography assistant, it was in fact my very busy dad! I also wasn't too keen on the background, too much of it is showing, it confuses the image, it becomes a maze and you don't know where to look so I came up with the idea of my model lying down on the floor and having the glass resting on her face, this way I had a plain floor background, I wasn't relying on an assistant to hold the glass still and gravity pulled the glass down to her face so she didn't have to pull it which may have resulted in breaking. 

A mixture of natural and artificial light balanced the lighting in the room so I had minimal glare but the glare I do have doesn't add to the image in a bad way, in my opinion that is anyway because I think it gives it a tired, uncomfortable look which is what a sufferer from OCD goes through on a daily basis, this image captures these feelings giving the viewer a little experience of what it might be like to suffer from OCD themselves. 

My next step is to create the other 3 of my brain scans then deciding how to make the images look more creative without taking away from what they're about. I'm thinking of sticking small stickers on the models face for this image to represent her feelings of thinking she's contaminated as opposed to the things around her.

Final Piece Beginning Process

For my final piece I'm going to take 4 photos  representing the four main themes of contamination OCD.
-Contamination results in harm to self or others.
-Simple awareness that a contamination is just there.
-Bugs and concerns over bug related contamination  (which is different from phobias related to insects).
-Washing rituals as efforts to remove undesirable thoughts or ideas.
I'm going to print my OCD brain diagrams onto acetate then stick them to a window and have a model squash their face against it in a Jenny Saville looking way. I will add elements to each image to reflect the theme it's representing for example in the washing ritual image I will have my model put water and soap on their face and pose in a fashion to make them look as though they're washing themselves.

Thinking back to my brain scan and diagram research I've found some outlines of brains that I can label up myself to use in my final pieces.

I will modify this brain outline and label it to represent the thoughts and actions of an contamination OCD sufferer using the theme of 'Contamination results in harm to self or others.' I'm going to research the thoughts of an OCD sufferer and find out what specific things play on their mind then transform the thoughts into my own words. 

I've looked at various websites and summed up in my own words thoughts to represent an OCD sufferer within the harm to self or others theme. I'll label the thoughts and actions to the correct places in the brain. The Orbital Frontal Cortex is the part of the brain that notices something is wrong. The Thalamus receives a worry signal then sends it back to the OFC. 

-'I'll contaminate you'.

-'I'm going to make people ill'.

-'I'm going to make people die'.

-I'm going to kill my friends and family'.

-'I need to stay away from them or they will die'.

-Don't touch me, you will get ill'.

-I'm a horrible person'.

-Do I want to contaminate them?'.

-Do I actually want them to die?'.

I will repeat this process with the 3 other themes.

I experimented with these brain scans and the scanner.

These images are interesting but nothing like what I'd like to take forward into my final pieces. The quality of using a scanner as opposed to taking the images on the camera would be too minimal to print them in my desired size of A2.

Post It Note Visuals

When placing my post it notes I didn't feel comfortable knowing how much bacteria could have been on the surfaces I had to touch to place the notes down, it made me feel sick and dirty, I couldn't wash my hands fast enough afterwards. I places the notes where they needed to be and took images of them trying to make the photos look as creative and interesting as it is possible to take a photo of a note stuck on something! My before shots before editing are below:

I need to edit the lighting on some of these photos to make them more consistent throughout. I will make the post it note brighter and the writing on them darker so they're easier to read from a slight distance. 

The photo above is evidently of a light switch, this is the bathroom light switch that has been said to hold a lot but less bacteria than the kitchen light switch. Taking this image out of the series and looking at it in an independent way I can see that it's a strong photo in terms of the detail, lighting and the story it's telling. The crack on the light switch, rough edges around the switch and on the wall paper and the scuffled, dirty marks on the wall show this is a widely used light switch which would be very much prone to bacteria. The tilted post it note adds to the imperfections of the image overall. 

The photo above is of the kitchen sink in my student home. I didn't place the cutlery in the sink, it was already there so I left it because I thought it looked good, it kind of enhances the shock when we realise that our knives, forks and spoons are places in areas covered in bacteria. I adjusted the blinds behind the sink so allow just enough light in to highlight the water stains in the sink and on the cutlery to give the image texture for it to look good. The knife lying in the middle and the tones and textures give this image a slightly scary look, it sort of reminds me of a crime scene. 

This photo is of the inside door handle in the bathroom. I angled it to capture the shower door in the image so it was clear to being a bathroom. I used the open door, the darkness coming from the left and the deep tones give the image a sinister feel so it comes across that the bacteria is 'evil' and 'unwanted'. 

This image is of the kitchen floor, once again I didn't place the item in the frame with the post it note, it was just there so I used it. The dirt and the object in this image give it something more to look at as opposed to just the note on a flat, plain surface. I like the idea of it looking like a crime scene like I'd previously mentioned, I think the link between crime, horror, fear and bacteria come together in these images emphasising the negativity with having and knowing you have bacteria in the home. 

The image above is of the microwave. I felt as though the image would benefit from not having captured the whole microwave, this way it's slightly more ambiguous and gives us a view of a microwave that is different to what we normally which again enhances the 'fearful', 'unknown' element in the series. 

This image shows how much bacteria gathers on a bathroom counter. Like previously mentioned a sinister feel has ran through this series and it's picked up on in this image with the use of scissors, lonely looking toothbrushes and the secluded corner I decided to set them up in. 

When talking about bacteria and germs a lot of objects and areas around the house are compared to the toilet seat because this is a place we'd expect to find lots of germs so it was important that I included this image into the series. The dark tone and blue fading colour of the toilet contrast massively with the bright note which drags the attention to the note and what it says. 

This is the tap in the kitchen. The shape of the tap allows it to capture light in and reflect it into different directions giving it a patchy look, this as well as the reflection from the note give them tap and the draining board texture and colour. 

Overall these images have come across as sinister, creepy and almost scary due to different reasons such as lighting, tone, angles and context. I wanted the bacteria to seem evil, like something you don't want lurking around your house so the sinister feel comes into play with this aspect and brings it to life. I like this series of images, I think the context, message and vision are really strong in the sense that they compliment each other and tell the story that I had in mind.