Film Stills

After a tutorial with Paula Chambers, I realised I was struggling think of a subject for my photography and the photographs I was producing didn't portray the issues I wanted in a very effective way.

As a fan of cinematography, I began to look at film stills for inspiration. I started searching the web for films that dealt with the issues of isolation and mental health. I soon became very interested in the way films dealt with these issues.

I now have a very large collection of film stills ranging from 1930's to present day, including English, French, German and Italian films. While collecting these images I realise that until very recently, isolation and mental health is something that was very rarely addressed in films. If it was addressed it was in a very over-the-top, dramatic way. Even now, certain genres of movies rarely tackle these issues. Genres such as action, and sci-fi to name a few never portray their characters with mental health issues or to be experiencing isolation and alienation.

Within my practice, I want to replicate some of the film stills I have collected using my Polaroid camera and distort them through the emulsion lift process. The final presented imaged will be called the name of the film and, as of yet, I am undecided as to whether I should present the film stills along side the emulsion lifts or whether I should only present the emulsion lifts.

I want the images to have an intimate feeling and also to be something that you really have to and want to look at closely. I feel that this is a juxtaposition as to how the issues I am dealing with are portrayed in the media.