Fear

As I’ve been thinking about my work and my exploration of fear and fantasy, I’ve particularly been thinking about fear.  Surprisingly I could not find many photographers who use fear as a subject not in relation to war photography.  In my explorations for other artists who deal with this subject I came across Joshua Hoffine.  http://www.joshuahoffine.com  Joshua explores childhood fears, using his photographs to tell horror stories that we are all familiar with, such as the monster under the bed.  However, what I think is really interesting about his work is that he builds his sets and creates the characters before shooting.  His settings are reminiscent of film sets on horror movies.  He positions his lighting to create the perfect horror movie feel and uses no postproduction photoshop to achieve the eeriness that his photos possess.  I especially relate to the piece that displays a child finding her mother dead and eaten by insects. When I was a little girl I remember having this same fear and even having nightmares about it because mothers generally are the most important thing to a child.  

In the same way that Hoffine presents a story, I too would like to create a kind of story using fear as a subject.  However, I don’t wish to portray childhood fears or a sensation of being in a horror movie.  I want to explore real fears that I myself possess, as well as many other people, such as a fear of failure, loss, loneliness, and ridicule. Unlike Hoffine, my tableaux will be autobiographical and pieced together after the shoot.  I want to continue to create collages using my photographs as well as other mediums.  In my tableaux I also seek to create objects as symbols for certain emotions or ideas as a way to tell a story and not to scary the viewer.