Lydia Jade Mackett
With this photo, I wanted to show balancing two different communities: the hearing community and the Deaf community.
I grew up mainstream, which meant that I didn't have access to learning British Sign Language, and I didn't have a Deaf community. So with the hands it's almost as if, I'm going ''What? I really don't understand what you're saying with your signing”, because I absolutely lack in it.
And also with some of the hands being underneath one another, it's sort of like saying that I'm being left out again, not quite understanding what's going on, but also trying to get my foot into the Deaf community by going to events, to try and get myself immersed into that community.
Two Different Communities
Isolation
I really liked this photo because it was showing my figure in a ghost-like way. I think the photo is quite obvious with the theme of isolation. I do think that is a common denominator within the Deaf community, isolation.
There have been certain situations in my life where I sort of deliberately made myself isolate from certain people, and it seemed to be a theme in a group setting. So when I am in a group setting, usually what happens is that everyone's talking, or there's more than one person talking, and then I can't follow the conversation, or even get a single word out of it.
So when I'm looking in that direction, in the photo, it's like I'm trying to follow what's going on, but then my focus gets lost into the darkness. And it's not necessarily that my mind goes into dark places, it just loses focus.
Get Through the Light
I do just like to be out in nature a lot. I was just taking in the view, and it's the very first thing where my brain just stopped thinking about anything. It's just peace, silence, just taking in the view as it is.
I think what I also like about this photo is you had the sun shining, but it's sort of covered by the cloud, and you can see that being reflected in the water. And I kind of like the light and dark shades, sort of meaning where you're going to have good days, but you're also going to have bad days. You can either choose to let that get you down, or you can choose to overcome it. Either way, you're still going be able to get through the light - you can reach through to the sun if you want to.