This is to show a personal issue with yourself, mainly based on appearance.

The final edit.

This is the original photo before editing.

I love the vibrance in the eyes in this photo, its what drew me to it.

I really like the words on this, and the emotion in the photo. This gave me the idea to look into using quotes in my photography.

I have chosen  to look at issues for this exam unit. I am going to look into ' personal issues' and the fronts people put up in order to hide these issues they have. I thought of this idea as i was with my four bestfriends and thought about how happy we all are, how much we laugh and joke but when you look deeper into each of our lives, we all have issues with either family or ourselves but unless you know that person well you would never know, sometimes even the closest of friends dont know everything that goes on in their friends lifes when not in their company. When you look at all of my close friends individually, they all suffer with issues, even though many people wouldnt know, some examples are of a friend whos family have alot of money, she lives with her mum, her dad and her only sister and they have the 'perfect' life, but this friend of mine actually has a serious hear condition where she has to have frequent operations and take alot of medication for since she was a young child. But no one would ever know this, and she is obviously upset by this, cant have the career she has always dreamed of because of this and has missed out on things she would have loved to do because of it, but she puts on a brave face and stays strong, she puts up this front and hides the way she feels from everyone, we all assume she is happy, and dealing with it well, when in fact for all we know she is just fine in out presence but at night when shes alone she could be the complete opposite and is very upset about it. within just a group of five of us there are many issues including death of a close loved one for example baby brother, mum and sister.. being gay and having your own family judging you.. having a serious heart condition and really low self esteem. I am going to be looking into the issues that people hide behind their smiles. 

This is my finished final piece. I used the Tchmo inspired coloured clouds but made the colours alot more subtle compared to the work i have been producing in the lead up to this. i experimented with more vibrant colours, exposure and curves and levels, and this is the final outcome. I thought the subtle colours worked best and i am happy with the outcome.

Here is the first try of the idea i had for a final piece. I really like how this came out although i still want to bring in the Tchmo inspired colourful clouds which i will be using as a final piece if it comes out as well as i am hoping it does. 

Here is the photo i have chosen to use in my final piece. I made it using two pieces of wood, glued them together and tied strings on them, and will use one of my previous photos of a clown to be the puppet..

I am going to look further into drugs and the relationship between dealer and buyer, and the power the dealer has over the buyer. I am going to look into puppets and the way they are controlled and the vulnerability of the users.

What makes som more vulnerable than others?

 Like many other diseases, vulnerability to addiction is influenced by
multiple factors, with genetic, environmental, and developmental factors all contributing. Genetics accounts for approximately half of an individual’s vulnerability to addiction, including the effects of the environment on gene function and expression. Elements of our social environments—culture, neighborhoods, schools, families, peer groups— can also greatly influence individual choices and decisions about behaviors related to substance abuse, which can in turn affect vulnerability. Indeed, addiction is a quintessential gene-byenvironment- interaction disease: a person must be exposed to drugs (environment) to become addicted, yet exposure alone does not determine whether that will happen—predisposing genes interact with this and other environmental factors to create vulnerability. In fact, environmental variables such as stress or drug exposure can cause lasting changes to genes and their function, known as epigenetic changes, which can result in long-term changeto brain circuits. Genes may also mitigate the effects of environment—which is why, for example, two substance-abusing individuals growing up in the same high-risk environment may have very different outcomes.


Adding to the complexity, the contributions of environmental and genetic risk factors may also vary during the different life stages of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Adolescence is the period when addiction typically takes hold. Additionally, because their brains are still undergoing rapid development in areas that contribute to decision-making, judgment, and risk-taking, adolescents tend toward immediate gratification over long-term goals. This can lead to risk-taking, including experimenting with drugs. When coupled with their increased sensitivity to social or peer influences and decreased sensitivity to negative consequences of behavior, it is easy to see why adolescents are particularly vulnerable to drug abuse.

Here i have used the acid cloud idea that i was inspired by by Tchmo. I like that the bright clouds give it more of an acid trip look, and when linked in with my theme looks like being on a high, and hallucination etc.. I tried my best to try and blend the clown into the sky and clouds, but struggled when changing colours and editing the vibrance and curves. i like that the balloons still stand out behind the coloured clouds, but that they arent too bright and eye catching at the same time. 

Here i have tried to improve the first image i did by making the clown blend in more and adding in more clouds and using different effects.

Here I have used a few of my previous ideas to come up with some things closer to what i could do as a final piece. I wanted to use the clouds and clowns as i've done a lot of work on them. I thought this idea worked really well as being on a high, this links in with my drugs theme. ive used the idea of cindy shermans m