O V E R W H E L M E D

Back in 2017, as a high school junior, I did a photography project named "Overwhelmed" over the course of 3 months. I photographed my friends and classmates - once in their neutral state, and a second time after asking them to showcase what emotion they were bottling up in that moment - all so as to reflect on feelings, teenage-hood, and body language. It was also a photo-editing personal experiment, and an interpersonal learning experience.

In transferring my past work from "Light Stories" onto "Chit-Cat", I re-post these photos and the original, somewhat crude, reflection of my slightly younger self, because this is as appropriate a time as any to, once more, reflect on emotions and growing-up. I'm about to officially move past my teen years and enter my 20s, so its only fitting that I look back upon the

sense of immense personal growth I feel I've developed since I first posted this project, even if its only been a little over 3 years ago. I'm well aware I'm still really young, and have a whole life ahead of me, but its precisely because of that largeness-of-the-world and long road ahead that, maybe, once again, I feel a tad overwhelmed. What with everything happening in the world at large, and in my own personal bubble too. And, with all the time we've had to sit with ourselves during the pandemic, should we have been so fortunate, its no surprise mental health is more important than ever.

So, I invite you to revisit these photos with me, as I nostalgically look back too, and consider what you're feeling, suppressing, and why. Good or bad, happy or sad. It may not be as black and white in reality, but if you resonate with any of these photos, remember that it is okay to exteriorize what you're feeling inside. Also, since September is Suicide Prevention Month, not only check up on your loved ones, but know you, too, can talk to someone, and ask for help.

You are not alone.

Here is a list of all the hotlines you can call, divided by countries.

[Original reflection of the photo-project at the bottom of the page.]

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April 5, 2017

This project has allowed me to grow a lot, both as a person, and as a photographer. My intent was to explore the emotions we deal with in our every day. We have our good and bad days, our not so special days, and all along, our emotions are always changing. We wake up in the morning feeling one thing, and as the day progresses, we feel another. We may have a bad morning, but then the day turns out to become quite good, or we have great start to the day, and something happens, and we feel the day is ruined.

Often, I find myself thinking about exactly this, and wonder what other's days are like. How have their emotions swayed them, or what have they heard, seen, or done throughout the day that has led them to a particular mood? I for one look back at my day and attempt to classify it with one specific mood. And, boy, were there times I felt like venting these thoughts and feelings I built up. I hope I'm not alone on this.

With this in mind, for the past three months, I have been working on this project, developing my editing skills, and challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone, daring to go up to people and try to connect through photography. I named it Overwhelmed, because it describes perfectly the mix of emotions captured in the project, as well as what a teenager's days feel like, meaning, they're overwhelming.

I sense this project emphasizes how little acknowledgement our emotions receive at all. The purpose truly was to showcase bottled up emotions, to give people a chance to let out any feeling they had through movement and/or expression, giving a free pass to do what we normally wouldn't do in the middle of the day (e.g. pull our hair out of frustration).

I targeted teenagers given, first of all, I am one myself, but mainly because we are at a point in our lives where we're trying to figure out who we are, how to deal with ourselves. In these ages, we are experiencing moments of growth and fear and insecurities, as well as hope, love and fun. Essentially, I felt its a point in everyone's lives where we tend to begin to suppress a lot of what we are feeling, either because we are told to grow up or man up, and that we have to endure what life throws at us, or either because we are led to believe our emotions are not important, that nobody cares. I consider that acknowledging them, learning to cope with them, and being open about them not only frees us, not only helps us become balanced people, but it is essential to learning more about ourselves.

In the future, perhaps, I'll add to the project, picturing other age groups, to try and understand how open to our emotions we are as we age. I predict the majority of children would be quick to identify and express their emotions, whereas adults would do the same as teens, if not take longer to identify how they feel, and be less expressive (in the most part).

The great thing about this project, and about each individual picture, is that we'll all interpret different things. Some may have some deep meaning, having been laid out in a given way for better impact, to give more emphasis, while others are just as they are: straight to the point. One thing is for sure, they are all genuine feelings each person had. I asked the 28 people below to express how they felt, be it in that particular second, that day, week, month or general moment in their life. And the results range from good to bad. The feelings themselves, in general, are a lot more complex than happy or sad, than black and white. The pictures are in black and white, but talking about emotions is not. There are bittersweet pictures below, as you'll see.

On a final note, through this project, I have learned an important aspect of photographing people. I see it as essential to truly build a connection with your subject, which in retrospect, I could've done better in this instance. Some of the people pictured below, close to me or not, had difficulty expressing how they felt, or even identifying how they felt. Some, I believe, did not dig deep, maybe because they weren't comfortable enough to do so, and if I could go back, I'd do much more than just ask them how they felt. Instead, I should've taken the time to work up a conversation, should've listened to them, gotten them comfortable to open up. Nevertheless, all the results were beyond my wildest dreams. Never in the beginning did I think It would be this awesome.

I'd like to thank everyone pictured, for opening up, and for helping me out in making this idea happen, and with such success.