Narrative

The purpose of this assignment is to get some experience in crafting a narrative.

For my Narrative I decided I wanted to do something to portray mental health. I chose to follow my best friend Alecia around for the day, she struggles with clinical depression. So this is a day in the life of someone with depression. Every story is different but I got to document this one.

Get Up

Alecia's phone receiving text messages from her mom at 2:39pm to move on with her day. Her phone is sitting next to her main meal of the day a bag of crackers. I think this photo almost speaks for itself. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Mess

Pictured here is Alecia's bedside table. Included in this photo is old and new cups that were never put away, half eaten snacks, books on mental health neatly stacked, self care items, and pill containers. I feel it really shows what is going on in her everyday life. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Daily Reminder

Alecia washing her hands in the sink of her bathroom. Her scars are clearly visible here, like a daily reminder of her past pain. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Sitting in thoughts

Here is Alecia laying in her bed with thoughts flooding through her head. Trying to find a distraction in watching things on her laptop. In this photo you can also see many elements of her room that give a glimpse of everyday life for her (example her calendar with nothing written for the week). It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Drowning

Pictured here is Alecia watching something on her laptop. I think this photo really shows the draining feeling depression brings. She looks tired out. It also says something about technology having a negative effect on your mental health. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Episodes

Depression doesn't always look sad. It can come in waves and episodes. Not everything you see on the surface is really what it is. Pictured here Alecia smiling looking out the window. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Gone

This photo was taken as Alecia was getting up to do something. I feel as though it shows the mess left behind and the mess that is crawled back into. It makes me sort of emotional to think that this is what her room would look like if her depression took her from us. It was taken on November 13th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Phone's Grasp

One of Alecia's coping mechanisms is to distract herself from her thoughts by going on her phone. Using social media to forget about the world around her. We all know social media can also be so damaging to a persons mental health. Maybe it's feeding it. This photo was taken on November 15th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Coping

Here is Alecia driving. It is out of focus because I feel that describes depression as a whole. Everything seems to be out of focus. Dissociating can also feel like things are out of focus. Alecia often drives late into the night to avoid being home with her thoughts. She will stay up late driving and listening to music so she can focus on that instead. It was taken on November 15th, 2021 by Julianna Gillis.

Alecia and I have been friends for about 7 years. We've both watched each other grow and go through things that really no one should have to go through. When we were in high school we both really struggled with Depression and our mental health in general. I always felt that Alecia could truly understand me and what I was going through. She knew me better than anyone in the world and made things worth living for. I hope I did, and continue to do the same for her. Mental health struggles are so hard, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a friendship like we had to get them through. It often goes unseen. I hope that this project makes people feel seen and understood. I hope it spreads light to the hidden effects of Depression. You never know what people are going through so check on your loved ones!

Reflection

This project was super interesting for me. I got to learn and understand things about Alecia I never saw before. Doing a narrative is hard. It was hard to tell a story that has such strong emotion with only photos. I for sure learned a lot about how to capture emotion and giving my photos feeling and meaning. Since Alecia and I are so close it wasn't too hard to get her to forget I was there and let me do my thing. I was super nervous I wasn't going to portray depression well, since its such a big controversial topic butI'm pretty happy with the outcome of this project. I had to realize that nothing is perfect and that's all of what I was trying to get at in the first place anyway. It was hard to get all my exposure settings right and I missed a few opportunities to take candid photos because I was trying to figure out what settings to set the camera at. There wasn't a lot of light to work with so I tried my best.

I realized I really love telling a story with each photo I take. It makes them seem more worth while and real. I am already brain storming so many ideas for future projects. I realized doing this project that I want to start making things less staged and capture things as they are around me.