Author: camsoravilla

For my final assignment, I have decided to continue working on images related to Covid-19. I wanted to take a more conceptual direction with these images to attempt to capture the emotions and anxiety that many people are feeling during this time. I wanted to capture a story through landscapes paired with a self-portrait. I wanted to juxtapose the landscapes with the conceptual images to capture the emotional story. I took the images of myself in a bathtub to allude to the idea of drowning, the water is opaque to capture the feeling of anxiety and being unclear of what the future holds. The virus is a respiratory illness and I used the cigarette and water in the mouth to symbolize the virus. The story in my images shows someone falling further into isolation, suffering silently. I wanted each pairing of images to relate to one another in order to draw comparisons between the landscapes and the portraits. It is important to reflect on the internal anxieties we face during this time so I used the portraits to represent the internal monologue of anxiety, chaos, and loneliness, with the landscapes to represent the physical emptiness and space between people.  

The first two images are the realization of loneliness that many people are faced with. These images hold a similar emotion as they both have intense highlights and some type of grid, the lights and darks are also very similar. 

The last two images are meant to be a final note on silent suffering which can take many forms. There are many stories that are going to go untold before, during, and after the virus is under control. I want people to understand that the virus is a threat both mentally and physically to everyone, while also understanding that there are people who are more vulnerable.

Taking these images was a bit of a struggle as I do not have my usual camera and lighting equipment. I used a desk lamp propped up on a kitchen stool as my light source which almost fell into the tub so taking these images was almost a near-death experience. My mom was also not very happy with me after I used up all of the milk.  

For this assignment I️ have decided to continue taking photos related to Covid-19. However, when I️ photographed for this assignment, I️ wanted to capture more isolated and quiet moments. These photos also gave me the opportunity to get out of the house which has kept me sane. I️ feel that these photos are a reflection of my experience which I️ hope others can relate to. It has also been super nice out these past couple days which I️ feel makes it almost more eery and dangerous. More people want to be outside so people are no longer social distancing and it just feels wrong that it would be bright and sunny out during a global pandemic. I️ mentioned this to my family and the said, in that vein, it is a lot like 9/11 because it was a beautiful day which made it feel so much more wrong. I️ also wanted to capture that this is New York because we currently have a lot of coronavirus cases. One thing that was super important for me to represent in my photos is how clear the skyline is. I️ have never been able to see it as clearly as I️ have this past month and I️ hope that is a silver lining.