Puzzle Woods

Below are the 2 final images I created and exhibited as part of my final major project at New College Stamford in June. 

My work was based around the theme of privacy. When a family member was taken in to hospital he was put on a lot of different medications - these made him imagine things. He was seeing different memories happening around him, imagining himself in a different place to the hospital. I noted down different things he said whilst in the hospital, many times he spoke about having been to the woods or getting ready to go to the woods. At one point said 'the only thing is I'm not wearing any trousers' and at another point said the birds which had just flown by were beautiful - although he was still in a hospital bed. These images represent his private thoughts which he was remembering but imagining happening around him - this subject interested me as it was an insight to how powerful the human mind and imagination can be. 

Campaign

Whilst at college we were given a project to look at and work towards a final outcome based around campaign photography. I looked at many different photographers and campaigns before I came up with my final ideas based around Rape and Smoking. 

I know both of these ideas may seem like the 'easy' ideas as they have been done so many times before, but that is what made me choose them - they have been done that many times that they all end up looking the same. I wanted to create more hard hitting images that the viewer would remember!

To make my photographs I had to get to know each subject first. I did some in depth research in to each subject, looking at facts and statistics to help me with this. Below is some of the information I found;

RAPE
*At least 47,000 women in the UK are raped every year
*with less than half of these being reported to the police 
*During 2004 the conviction rate for rape was just 5.3%!
*Most victims lose their case as it is blamed on themselves for drinking or the clothes they were wearing!!
*Around 40% of rapes are drink induced and 12% are drug induced!!!
*Around the UK there are only 15 referral centres to help victims of rape 
*In most cases the victim knows the perpetrator (often happening in their own home) which is why many people do not report it 

PASSIVE SMOKING
*Tobacco use kills more than 5million people every year!
*There is no 'safe' level of exposure to tobacco smoke 
*Second-hand smoke causes more than 600,000 deaths every year!!
*More than 40% of children live in a household where they are exposed to second-hand smoke
*Children exposed to second-hand smoke in the home are 1.5-2 times more likely to start smoking than those who are not!
*165,000 CHILDREN ARE KILLED PER YEAR DUE TO SECOND-HAND SMOKE!!!

I used the information I found to help create my images displayed below... I won't go on any longer! I'll let you make your own judgements about my images! 

Sleeping Beauty

Our aim was to create a book jacket based around any genre and book we wanted. 

I looked in to children's books, looking at classic fairy tales - such as Sleeping Beauty. My initial ideas were more basic, more colourful , more suited to a children's novel. I dared to take a different take with my photograph here! I created a book jacket that wasn't at all suited to an audience of children but to more of a young adult audience. 

After all Sleeping beauty was in fact a horror story when it was first written in the 1600's by French author Charles Perrault. 

I used the rose and thorn placed on the pillow to represent many of the key features within the more modern take of Sleeping Beauty. The pillow is to represent where Sleeping Beauty lays her head to rest when she falls in to a deep sleep, but also to represent the bed where she lays. With the rose representing the thorn upon which she pricks her finger. This rose also represents the body of Sleeping Beauty laying on the bed. 

If you want to know more about how I created my image or have any questions about my other work feel free to message me, or drop me email - elizabethold@hotmail.co.uk

London Street Photography 

Earlier this year I went to London to experiment with Street Photography. I had looked at the work of Markus Hartel, a New York based street photographer ( http://www.markushartel.com ). I was interested in the way he captured people so naturally on the street and experimented with that myself. I took a range of images, including images of people and shop frontages / reflections. Here are just a few of the images I took that day.