Jane Saddington, Cognitive Dissonance (Portrait (ATEP 2017))

To be called a fag, queer, poof, homo and many other derogatory names from other people is one thing and is hurtful enough in itself, however to have that hate and judgement towards yourself, takes it to a whole new level. My aim in this series was to explore the internal conflict my brother went through growing up in a Christian family and coming to terms with and acknowledging that he was homosexual. In doing this I hoped it would help me understand his struggle and maybe in the process be somewhat cathartic for him also. I am sure this is not something he is going through alone, but is something many can appreciate and relate to in some way, therefore was an important story for me to tell. I wanted to approach telling this story with the respect that it deserved and therefore felt by keeping the photos simple and minimal would best achieve this. I chose to use the black backdrop and to have the images in black and white to best portray the emotions and stages Jarrod was going through and to ensure the focus was on him and with no distractions. It also represents and symbolises the psychological space that he was in at the time, being the big black hole of negativity and depression that he was experiencing.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.