Perception Studies

11/11/20

“Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea.”

-American Psychological Association

I wanted to depict how trauma affects our perception of the world. I took a metaphorical approach to the experience of being triggered into a trauma response because although panic attacks or trauma responses don’t literally affect how we see, hear, smell, and touch, they can affect how we emotionally and physically translate our senses from the world into our brains. We might feel extremely scared or nervous when faced with something harmless because of how trauma impacts our memories. Our minds want to protect us from danger. This could be a social situation, something that triggers a flashback, or it could come out of nowhere. I wanted to depict how something non-threatening could trigger the feeling of fear. I intended for the photos to have a narrative arc which I pulled from the biological model of a panic attack. I can’t find an image to support this, but my old therapist used to show me a chart that would depict the changes that the human body undergoes during a panic attack. Symptoms such as increased heart rate, adrenaline, etc. The reassuring aspect of this was that the human body can not stay in this state for a prolonged period of time. It peaks around 10 minutes. No matter how bad a panic attack feels, it will end.

ISO 400 – F/14 – 1/160

ISO 400 – F/16 – 1/160

ISO 400 – F/16 – 1/320

ISO 400 – F/9 – 1/800