After finding more photographers online that focus on their own story I came across a really touching series by Carly Clarke. Carly is a social and portrait documentary photographer based in Britain. Her work mostly focuses on the social issues and subjects that goes unnoticed in the world. By using narratives in her images using a cinematography style, she can creatively reach out to her audience and express these issues. One of her remarkable and quite distressing series is called “Reality Trauma”. In March 2012 during her final year of studying a degree in photography, she was diagnosed with a 4b Hodgkin Lymphoma, a rare form of cancer located in her right lung. During that horrendous time, she decided to photograph her journey through self portraits as she felt that her life was changing very quickly. During chemotherapy, she stated that she felt overwhelmed during the six months with the fear of dying. ‘While I was overwhelmed with chemotherapy treatment for 6 months and the idea of possibly dying, I felt a necessity to record my journey and document my life as it changed so drastically. This led to examining not just myself, but the whole of life’s meaning on many levels. My body became a shell, limited in movement, filled with pain, while I could do nothing but hope and wait for every treatment to end.”
Carly Clarke » » Reality Trauma. 2016.
One of Carly images which has been featured on Edge of Humanity magazine is this photograph of her, staring into the camera with an life support machine next to her. This photo was taken on the last day of her chemotherapy. Reading this photo she seems emotionless but portraying of a somewhat feeling of fear in her eyes not knowing if she would live or perish from cancer. The background behind her which includes a bed and a machine next to her symbolises that she must have been spending a lot of time in the room.
Looking through Carly Clarke’s “Reality Trauma” series has been quite distressing, However in my opinion, I feel that she has expressed to her viewers the issues relating to cancer and how most people sometimes do not understand what a person goes through. In her series on “Reality Trauma” she constructed her self portraits in a informal way where viewers could follow her journey on how cancer was destroying her inside. I feel that she is very brave documenting her lifestyle with the rare form of cancer. For inspiration I want to experiment using social portraits in my documented series. It would be interesting to use them for my development work. Experimenting with self portraits which expresses no emotion from the subject may add depth to one of my photographs.
References:
Carly Clarke » » Reality Trauma. 2016. Carly Clarke » » Reality Trauma. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.carlyclarkephotography.co.uk/reality-trauma/. [Accessed 13 December 2016].
Edge of Humanity Magazine. 2016. Documentary Photography – Fighting Cancer | Edge of Humanity Magazine. [ONLINE] Available at: https://edgeofhumanity.com/2016/03/13/cancer/. [Accessed 13 December 2016].
Portrait Salon. 2016. Carly Clarke – Portrait Salon. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.portraitsalon.co.uk/carly-clarke/. [Accessed 13 December 2016].
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