This project challenged me to focus on something I wanted to improve on in the following year and create a work either designed in motivation of overcoming it or highlighting the challenge itself.

I chose to show the effects of overthinking and how it can blur your view on what's happening around you, cloud your mind, and make it difficult to work with confidence and clarity. I decided to capture a photograph depicting this feeling to have the strongest visual impact in both message and idea. The photograph is taken with a very low shutter speed to create a blurry effect as I am looking in two different directions, as if I can't focus because there are multiple thoughts pulling my attention in different headspaces. I chose to make it a self portrait rather than to photograph someone else because my appearance to both myself and others is something I tend to overthink, so it would be the best way to both highlight the challenge and work towards overcoming it in the same image. The photograph has been changed to black and white because often I find that when I am overthinking something, it can feel like the options are black and white: if I do this, it will go this way; if I don't do this, this will be the result. The loss of color brings the attention to the blurring of the face, the two directions that I appear to be looking, and appeals to the despondent emotion seen in my expression.

This photograph was appreciated by both my peers and my professor because they were able to grasp the concept and message of the work immediately. They believe that the blurry state of my face and the visual of looking in different directions, while the rest of my body is unmoving, strengthens the visual message of overthinking and how it can affect someone.