Infectious - Short Film/Documentary

Infectious

Its no secret that my family face some severe mental health problems, mainly my brother. He suffers from schizophrenia and transient psychosis, this has been the case for the last nine years. During the making fo this short film/documentary his illness had gotten much more intense when he refused to take medication and decided to face the problem through my camera which helped me to deal with everything happening around me as a coping method and turn everything into a form of art rather than real life.

However, after I made the documentary it also helped everyone to understand my brother better and a few months after he started calming down from taking his medication he also watched it and was able to see himself in another way and I think had an overall positive affect on him. 

The making of this has had a lot of impact on a lot of areas of my life and I think it could be one of the best films i'll make! 

Unless you've lived with this kind of mental health its near impossible to imagine or even to describe what the careers have to go through and the illness of the individual often ends up tearing the family apart - but this film helped me and mum to remember that its the illness that makes my brother act like that, not himself and we cant hold him against it for something he cant control.

Mr Harris

War Shoot

These are some of the first outcomes of the war shoot I did with toy soldiers, some of the lighting in these shots came out so great! 

Pathway

"Playing House"

For my A2 photography documentary project, I used photos from a documentary I did on my brother to further reflect living with the strain of mental health in a form of a dolls house.

Documentary Photography - His Insanity

Infectious

These photos are like a summery of the documentary I did on my brother, he was diagnosed with transient psychosis and schizophrenia over five years ago. This is some of my most honest work and it really did make a huge difference to me and my family.

I do have a separate blog dedicated to the whole documentary and project...

http://hisinsanity.blogspot.co.uk/

This project looks at the tension, frustration and strain my brothers condition has put on his family and his own life, although at the moment we're all enjoying a very stable, happier moment with my brothers mental health problems this whole project reflects on a time when everyone was ready to give up and my brother was stuck in a very dark, scary place.

I got inspiration for the name, 'Infectious' for the project from my own experience with my brothers mental health problems.

When you try to care and look after someone with severe mental health problems, it sometimes feel as if your going crazy yourself.