Final

This is the final image that I have chosen:

It was a bit challenging to do this scenario as neither me or Andrea have kids and even with all the research and images in the world you can't really know how to act, what to do. you can only presume and try to find your inner instinct.

I didn't want to have kids in the picture because 1) it was too obvious an 2) I wanted to portray her feelings. I chose toys instead to represent the kids.

She is holding the toys in her arms to show the attachment to her kids. She even resembles to a doll as her cheeks are red.I chose that room because it has that feel of family room, that kind of living room with a TV and books and a painting. 

She remembers her childhood as well with all those toys around and that's why she is miles away, remembering her past. She is sitting on the floor to show that she is capable of doing that and playing with her kids in order to make them happy. Kneeing is an act of surrender and acceptance.

She holds her teddy bear from her childhood. Even if she's a grown up she still has her memories in her heart and that teddy bear was with her from the moment when she was young till now..

Shoot

Having in mind my new obsession and the scenario, I went again to London to shoot. It starting to feel like a job going to London almost every week.

We asked a housemate of Andreea to let us take some images in her room as it was very nice and suitable for my scenario. Her room looks quite modern so that’s why I thought it would be very good as background. I wanted that sort of family living room.The idea behind this is the moment when a woman, after she finally meets someone and gets married, she has children and then she becomes obsessed with them because she loves them too much. She gets involved with everything related to kids. Even her looks a bit like a doll because of the make-up.  I couldn’t and I didn’t want to have kids in my image as it would have been too obvious so that’s why I chose something to represent them: toys, colourful toys. She looks attached to them as she is to her kids, they are yours as her kids as well. 

Next

In a chronological order, the next step in a woman's life would be the moment when she has kids.Taking about this has become a stereotype attributed to every woman: the right thing to do after you get married is to have kids.

My interest is not to go on the same path and show an image of a stereotyped woman but, instead, I want to portray her inner thoughts about being a mother, about motherhood.

motherhood obsession

I want to portray her thoughts without using kids or anything like that because they are not the main  the subject.It's about what she feels and what she is doing. This is just a particular case so I am not saying that every woman will react the same as Andrea.

My mom did the same thing. She got married and then she had me and my brother. All her attention has shifted then from her to us. It was just about us and what she can do to make us happy and to offer us the best things in life.

this is the outfit we are going to use

Final image

This is the final image I have chosen:

It was easy to work with these 2. Both are great actors and I could see they love what they are doing. 

The reason why  chose this room instead of the others was because of the homely feel. It is simple and the colours are very natural and it gave me the feeling of home. The other 3 were different, one very extravagant, the other didn't really fit with my idea etc. This one instead really looks like a family room instead of a hotel room.

I believe this is the best image from all because putting them together like that can portray better my idea rather than having them separate. I chose to use natural body language in order to catch the essential. I left them do their job, they were very excited about this and they managed to get into their role really easily.

She is trying to get attached to him by holding his body and she's trying to tell him that she doesn't want to loose him. He means a lot to him and that's why he fears she might do something wrong to loose him which is suggested by the tension in her legs. 

She doesn't look as if she's holding him very tight but the tension and the position of her fingers show the level of attachment and desire involved. Her look is very expressive which helped me a lot.

At the same time, he is sitting on the bed almost helplessly, showing no signs of resistance. He loved her too much to say anything, he is trying to help her but in his soul he knows that something is not quite right which is suggested by her look and the frowning. He looks a bit sad and as if he's miles away because he's thinking about the whole situation.

Back to shooting

Andreea came back to Canterbury, he didn't stay for long but I managed to take advantage of that and shoot with her the new idea that I had - obsession with a new person

I had previously talked to someone from House of Agnes which is near Sainsbury’s in Canterbury to see if we could shoot there and the lady from reception, probably the owner of the hotel, was really nice to me and said that it wouldn’t be a problem. So we had a place to shoot which was very nice. House of Agnes has got rooms with different ambient: there is a Venice room that has got that kind of style, Canterbury room, Tokyo room, Paris room and many more. They are lovely.

Me and my friend made the plan for that day to shoot at the hotel. We called a friend to help us as we needed a guy to be the “husband”. After a couple of hours of preparations we were finally on our way to the hotel. When we got there, the lady again was friendly and very nice considering the fact that a stranger who pretended to be a student wanted to take images in her hotel. She didn’t ask anything about the shoot just told us that we have the first floor free, 4 rooms that we could use. That was a blast. We had: the Canterbury room, Tokyo room, Venice room and the Boston room. We tried in all of them the apart from the Canterbury room as it didn’t really fit the concept, plus it was dark as well. Venice room was very elegant but in the end the best images were in the Boston room. The simple design suited the idea very well I think.

We tried various poses, both models were great and very expressive which was very helpful. This kind of models is every photographer’s dream.  I chose a simple dress for her, more like a housewife dress with flowers and just a bit of colour and for him I wanted a more elegant style as he represents the man in the house that brings money, more like a business man. 

The Canterbury Room 

The Venice Room

The Tokyo Room

The Boston Room

Some inspiration

Elliott Erwitt, Robert & Mary Frank, Valencia, Spain, 1952

Michael Caine & Natalie Wood. Photo Billy Ray, 1966.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in Paris

Research

I found this interesting article about obsession. Carmen Harra, who is a psychologist, talked about being obsessed with someone and what that means.

• She says that none of us admits that he/she is obsessed as it s a harmful state of being but the truth is that everyone has got an obsession from food to people. (which is what I said  right from the beginning of the project even if a lot of people denied having an obsession).
• being obsessed is obviously not a good things. In fact it is a negative thing and everything we have in life we need to consume it with moderation as that is the key to a good life
• the word "pbsess" comes from the Latin verb "obsidere" which means 'to sit inside of, or occupy so basically when you are obsessed with a person, that person figuratively occupied our brain
• Dr Harra also states that as a specialist, she hears a lot of cases about obsession for a person because all sorts of reasons
• she says that the key to obsession is when you can't have that person (in my story, Andrea has become obsessed with a person because she didn't have anyone before and now she doesn't want to let go because she is afraid of loosing him)
• being infatuated with someone is healthy but she says that we can cross the line and go too far with that and that's the moment when we develop that addiction, that obsession with another person

What's next?

So basically I have got 5 shots right now that I am pleased with. I need to carry on digging as it's starting to be very interesting to me.


From this moment on, the story will be portrayed according to my vision on what it could happen, taken into consideration my mother's life and what society promotes.

The next step in Andrea's life would be the moment when she finally meets someone, not necessarily because what she has done to herself was right but it was her time to finally be happy. It is that moment when you finally meet him and you become addicted because he's the first person who saved her in the end.

This will be the obsession for someone.

Final image

The final image I have chosen is:

Compared to the other images that I have got so far, this one is darker. The reason I decided to have it like that is to resonate with what Andrea's insecurity and anxiety. 

Because of the obsession to be in that virtual world and because the media was so assertive, she was naive to believe everything. Now that she has done it, unfortunately she still feels unsure if that was the right decision. 

She is looking out the window hoping that after this she will manage to be perfect and have friends and have fun. She is trying to get the approval of someone. The fact that her eyes are closed means that she didn't know that she was going to do this before choosing to start a new life. She wished this whole situation would have been better.

The rain outside suggests the idea of nostalgia and memories which is what is happening with Andrea right now.

New shoot again

I forgot how it is to shoot so many times. It feels exhausting but good at the same time. Andreea came to my place this time to shoot.

It was a rainy day, cold and miserable. Best thing to do on such a day is to stay home, drink tea and watch a movie. Well, we did stay home but instead of a movie, we tried to shoot. I had the idea in mind and the meaning so I decided to go something simple in my own flat. We didn’t need many props, just a few bits and a few body tricks. We tried different rooms, different poses. It was cloudy outside so I didn’t have a lot of light but I tried to use as much as I was given. It was free in the end. I wanted to use the body language more than any other props. I wanted to let the body speak for itself.

Final

The final image I have chosen is:

I believe this image is the best from all that represents the obsession for the virtual world. Andrea is in her own new home, alone trying to find a way to stay connected to the world. She doesn't have friends but she tries to stay connected with her old ones.

Instead of choosing to put her in front a laptop or just a TV I decided to add more elements which bring the idea of virtual world like a laptop, phones, earphones, the TV etc. The reason why she is using earphone is because she is trying to stay connected to that world so she doesn't remember she's alone. She likes listening to music.

She is wearing colorful clothes, she's got a new haircut - she started a new life hoping she end up doing what she loves. The earphones help her stay connected to her past but at the same time the TV is remembering her about the new world and about the fact that one of the reason she might be alone is because something might be wrong with her, physically speaking. 

She is again between 2 things, her past and her present. She is a bit confused and sad but she tries to deny that by trying to find an activity in this virtual world and to listen to what other people say hoping that she will get better. Her body position also suggests loneliness and anxiety. 

Result?

Another day to London to shoot with Andreea the obsession with the virtual world. I found this very hard to do because I didn't want to shoot the usual image of someone standing in front of a laptop.I struggled for days to think about something else and in the end I went for something simple.

In my first year, I experimented with the bin bags to reveal the outside image upside down, camera lucida. It was a very nice experience so I decided to use something from that to do my 4^th scenario. I needed to make a room darker in the middle of the day so I bought bin bags to cover the windows. The idea behind this image is that she becomes obsessed with the virtual world because in this new world she doesn’t have any friends and she finds it really hard to make new ones. She needs something to entertain her so that’s why she chooses the virtual world: she can stay in touch with her old friends, with her past. Listening to music is what makes her really happy. I managed to find a TV channel about women so it was perfect for my story. With the new beginning, she made a change in her life she looks more like an adolescent now. A new haircut, more colorful clothes, it’s her.

Backstage: :)

Wes Naman

He used scotch tape to transform the faces of his subjects. He then asked them to try and take the tape off using the muscles of their faces which made the subjects pull funny faces. It's then when Wes would take a picture.

His images are funny and they bring a sort of manipulation feeling. I can't say that the images are inspiring or anything like that but I thought they were interesting to share because they treat the same problem, plastic surgery.

Steven Meisel

Meisel did an editorial for Vogue Italia about plastic surgery stating that fashion and beauty don't come easily and that you need to get hurt in order to get both. This is an affirmation that not everyone can digest easily and a lot of people would like to discuss. People have different opinions about this problem but I think that beauty comes from within not from fashion or style or trying to look good.