Taphophobia

As you saw in my previous post, I have done lots of October themed portraits where I have dressed up as someone or been a character. If you search through my Facebook, Flickr or blog history you can find even more than what I posted. I even have more ideas. I have had the costumes and concepts for medusa, an exorcism with priest and silly ghost people for about 4 years now. I have a costume closet full of medieval attire and other character costumes I haven't shot. Some even my kids have outgrown before I did the photo. But it wasn't what interested me right now to create.  For this October I wanted to dive deeper into the concept of fear. Fear being something that gets associated during this time of year of costumes, scary decorations and tricks that are played.

Fear is often discussed in my photography groups. However, it's usually discussed in the context of being afraid to create art, or afraid to show your work to others. I don't have fears like that. It's not that I like rejection or that some rejection doesn't sting, but I don't have that fear of putting myself out there and then being told no. I  have submitted to so many "calls for art" in various ways since 2002 that maybe I have just because accustom to getting those rejection emails. However, I've also been really successful. I've been in magazines, exhibitions and won awards. If I didn't put myself out there in the first place, I'd never get a good call/email. Yes it stings when you really think your photo would work well for a call and then you get the "sorry to inform you" email. Or you spend hours on something that someone else doesn't care for. I've learned that if I create for myself and am happy with my finished product then it doesn't matter as much if others love my work.

But yes I want others to like my work too :)

So back to fear.....I wanted to approach fear a little different. I wanted to tap into what non photography/personal fears there are in the world and then create based on that. This is going to be an ongoing series for me as I explore this concept more. And with many fears in the world, I have lots of subject matter to explore :) I do not plan to explore fears of anxiety or self doubt or other very personal fears. I want these images to be relatable to a wider audience, and they will cover what everyone knows as a fear. I want the viewer of this series to already understand the concept and appreciate the images without having to personally have that fear themselves.

So first in my Phobia Series is:

BURIED ALIVE 

Or otherwise known as:

Taphophobia

Taphophobia is the irrational fear of being buried alive. It is closely related to other phobias such as: fear of death (Thanatophobia), fear of tombstones (Placophobia), and fear of tight and enclosed spaces (Claustrophobia*). 

When I take a self portrait, whether its a silly photo of me as a cartoon character or something like this, I always try to go fully "into character". I think of my self portraits as acting. If I don't believe it, its not believable to the viewer. When I did my 52 week family self portraits, I would say this every week to my family. They had to become whatever character I was asking them to be. So yes, for this group of photos I had to get into character of being buried alive. I must admit, it was pretty exhausting. When you do something that is heaver like this, it can drain you, as if you really experienced it. 

This first photo is the main image for this phobia. It's a woman in a glass coffin with dirt being thrown on top of her. In this image she fully knows what is happening and so does whoever is doing this to her. It's pretty scary to think about as it was no accident. It's being done purposefully and she knows there is no good outcome.

I already have an ongoing Ghost Series and a few of those images take place in cemeteries, so I didn't want to be redundant with doing something similar to what I have done before, but I wanted to include a gravesite. So I came up with a way to keep with this phobia and not replicate something I have already done. 

The silly take away from this photo is that is was VERY hard to get my hand/arm dirty with just dirt as I didn't want it to be mud. It amazes me that my kids can get dirty by being outside 30 seconds and I was trying to get dirty and it kept rubbing off. I had to rub dirt all over my arm after every take and still much of this "dirt" is photoshop.

Now I am going to share this, as its already been picked up by an agency, but its not 100% my favorite, and feels like I want to do more with it. I had a similar idea to do this with someone on top of the grass. I had it figured out, just the edit didn't quite go together. I still have it on a folder to work on and I will share that version if I get it done :) But I can see this image being presented in a few different ways, so it may be something I revisit at some point. But its the most clear cut Buried Alive of the three :)

And this last image will give you your behind the scene of how I shot it. I am really that close to the top, I did not lower the top to make me more confined. I climbed onto the bottom of our coffee table and put a brown blanket over the back to make it look like a box.

See I don't post in over 2 weeks and boom a long post with 3 images! Hope I made up for the absence while I finished football season and dove head first into busy portrait season :)

 *I totally see me exploring [claustrophobia] on it's own for this series.