Bianca Vargas
Laurence Demaison, "Psyches"
2009
This image by French photographer Laurence Demaison captures what is not visible to the human eye. She uses the long exposure technique to create distortion and ambiguity. I feel that this method she is using speaks volumes in the sense that you can almost hear the photograph. When I came across this image I can see a lot of noise and chaos, yet it felt like silence. Personally, two things come to mind when I see this image which are sleep paralysis and mental health. The reason I say this is because I've experienced both, and in a lot of ways they are similar. This image depicts how during sleep paralysis your body is asleep while your mind is awake. Similarly, when you struggle with mental health, your body is numb to the mind, in the sense that you are not physically aware of what is happening mentally. This image evokes fear and panic due to that the subject is still, while it also creates movement. The distortion of the image gives the idea that it's more acceptable to be imperfect rather than perfect. So, overall this image is powerful, because it depends on the person viewing it to decide what it means to them.
