I’m Doing Okay

I was inspired by TV shows, books, and seeing my friends deal with this issue in real life. With the title, “I’m Doing Okay”. Everyone has probably dealt with anxiety at least once in their life. But, for some people, it happens all the time, everyday. The series express the idea of feeling stressed, helpless, and isolated from the world. Having to hide all the problems from the world and pretending that everything is okay. Hoping that it’s hardly noticeable, that everything will just go away on its own.

With the first photo I had my camera set to a large aperture to get a clear image of the person’s facial expression. I choose to put words in the background of my image to show how in life people want to speak out, but can’t. Being too scared to speak out. To get the tone of darkness and fear I used a slow shutter speed of eight to ten seconds to get a ghost effect with my camera.

In the second photo I used Photoshop to combine multiple photos together to create this image. I added multiple hands reaching out from the door to show that feelings can not magically disappear. No matter how hard you try to hide your feelings, it will always come back. All of the images in the series are self portraits. It allowed for an environment of intimacy between myself and the camera. I could also better connect with the audience because I was able to express my own feelings into the images. I was able to shoot without any fear of outside judgement. I can try different shots and execute the images the way I envision it.

For my final photo in my anxiety series I printed out words and stuck them on to the wall because words can be vulgar.