#4 Matthew Shepard's Story

"Matthew Shepard's Story"

This image was also taken October 20, 2010. I titled this picture "Matthew Shepard's Story" because this actually happened in real life. His story is one of the worst stories I have ever heard and is the worst hate crime I know of. Matthew was 21 years old when he was murdered. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, drove Matthew to a strange location, beat him, tortured him, tied him to a fence, and left him to die. He was discovered by a cyclist, Aaron Kreifels, 18 hours later. He had first mistook him as a scarecrow. But by the time he discovered Matthew he was already in a coma. His injuries were horrible. People said that he was beaten so bad that his face was covered in blood except for the places where Matthew's tears had washed away the blood. To learn more about Matthew Shepard click here.

For this photo I used the rule of thirds to place Tam in the bottom right corner. I wrapped Tam's wrists in yarn and very loosely tied them to the fence. I made it clear to her that if she needed them loosened or needed to be untied at anytime to let me know. I had her slump down and asked her to look as limp as possible, to look as if she was dead. I had to edit this picture alot because I had accidently left my camera set to tongsten lighting instead of normal day light. The picture turned out blue so I fixed the color by going to color balance in photoshop. I also edited in some lighting with photoshops lighting effects. I have it lightest where Tam is because that is the part I want people to be focused on. News stories about Matthew Shepard had said that his face was covered in blood but I couldn't bear to put anymore bruised and bloody make up on her. At the end of this photo shoot I felt absolutely horrible. To see her like that was almost too much for me because I am so protective of her. I can't tell you how many nightmares I've had where she's about to be beaten and I try to protect her.

This image, like the past 3, has a pretty dark feeling to it. This is actually the only idea that I had that hadn't changed. I'm hoping that when people see this they'll feel horrible but I would just like to clarify that the purpose of these pictures is not to depress people (well kinda). I'm not sadistic and I don't enjoy hurting people in anyway but I want people to think. I mean REALLY think. Think about these people. Think about how they're being hurt. Think about how they've been hurt. Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was gay! For no other reason besides that he was gay! As if being gay is a reason to be hated and in this case even killed! I don't know how people will react to this photo being paired with the the story of Matthew Shepard but I'm kind of hoping that it.....I don't want to say "rip them to shreds" but that's kind of what I want. But I don't want them to just be depressed I want them to try to do something about it. Do anything! Even if it's as small as stop saying "gay" or "faggot" or any other hateful word that is targeted at homosexuals or telling someone else to stop using those words. When I read Matthew's story it destroyed me. I was crying so hard because being bullied and hated for being gay is one thing but being murdered?! It breifly made me lose hope in humanity. But I realized that losing hope and being depressed about something is a horrible thing to do. The thing you need to do is get up and do something about it! And that's what I did. I got up, mourned the murder of Matthew, got angry, and created this shot. I'm only 15 and if taking pictures and doing my art is the only thing I can do I'm going to do it. I can tell you right now that my pictures are more than likely not going to brighten up much at all. I have 3 ideas swirling around in my head right now and the brightest one (which I think I'll be shooting soon) is a family portrait of two gay men and their adopted childeren. Please if my pictures make you feel something, angry, depressed, thankful, anything! Get up and do something about it! Nothing will change immediatly but if we all work together eventually things will change. That's all I want. That's all anyone wants I think: change.

Please check out these links:

Matthew Shepard's Story

Remembering Matthew Shepard and Reflections on October

Judy Shepard's Statement About Her Son's Death 10 Years Later

Rest in Peace

Matthew Shepard

December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998

#3 Anti-gay Bullying

"Anti-gay Bulling"
9 out of every 10 queer kids are bullied, beaten, and bashed!

The above photo was taken on October 20, 2010. It was also the day where many people wore purple in memory of the recent suicides caused by anti-gay bullying. To learn more about that click here and here. My models are Justin Killingsworth (playing the bully) and Tam Nyguen (playing the victim). I would first like to state that Justin is pro gay rights and that no children were actually punched, bullied, or hurt during this photo shoot. All the bruises were created with make up. The bloody nose was made with fake blood purchased at a halloween store.

There were a few challenges I had to work through with this shoot. The first was trying to get both of my models at the same time. But the two biggest ones were the awkwardness in the air during the shoot. I felt awful asking Justin to pretend to beat Tam up because he would never hurt anyone because they're gay. Another challenge was trying to get Tam to look like she's actually in pain. The last one was a personal challenge: trying to remember that the bruises and blood were only fake and trying to finish the shoot before lunch ended.

In this picture I have Tam sitting on the ground and Justin walking away as if he's finished the beating and is going home. I had Tam wear my rainbow cuff and my other bracelet that says "LOVE" (which you can't see in this picture). The reason why I had her wear those bracelets is because it shows that it's not just any bullying but it's anti-gay bullying. In this picture she was actually holding her hair back because it kept getting in the way of the make up but it works because it looks like she's just holding her face because she's in pain. The location I shot at is in the ally way near classroom 116. I decided to use Tam as the victim because she is sweet, adorable, and so innocent. Another reason is because when bullies find out someone is gay or they think someone's gay they don't care who that person is, they don't care if that person is defenseless or can't fight back they will go after them.

The feeling of this photo is dark, once again. I don't think any photographer could possibly make this image positive in any way. This photo is purposely dark. I want people to look at this picture and see her face and feel horrible. I want them to wish that they could have protected her. I want them to feel her pain. And I want them to want to do something about it! School is suppose to be a safe place for all children! No matter what age, sex, race, or orientation! Every child is supposed to have a safe learning environment.

Links:

http://listown.com/group/wear-purple-october-20-2010-15194

http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/on_wednesday_wear_purple_and_say_no_to_hate

http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/anti-gay_bullying_suicides_whos_really_to_blame

Below is a picture of the make up that I did on Tam

Bye

#2 Hidden Love

"Hidden Love"

Above is the second photo for my portfolio. My models are my best friends Diana and Amber. This image was inspired by two of my friends (not the ones in the photo) who are going out. Both of the girls are bi sexual and make an adorable couple. But they have to hide the fact that they are going out and how much they love each other because when one of the girl's sister saw them kissing she told their mom and she got in huge trouble. It was worse than just getting in trouble. The girls mother temporarily stopped talking to her daughter and kept say "Where did I go wrong with you...?" When she told what happened it broke my heart because I love them and they deserve to be happy but for her mother to say that....I can't imagine how much that must have hurt her. They are still together and they were willing to model for this picture until they found out I had to put it up on here. They don't want to have to break up because of their families.

This image was actually not my first idea. My original idea was to shoot them in the studio with tungsten lights and black out their faces in photoshop to represent how they can't let people know that they're going out. But Ms. Miles said that I should shoot outside and use natural symbolism like the crack. The crack (which I had to photoshop a second one in) represents the strain having to hide their love puts on their relationship. They're holding hands but notice that they are back to back and are kind of hiding their hands on the side, that represnts them being together but having to keep it a secret. Their faces which are shadowed was not created by the magic of photoshop but by the tungsten light and represents once again their secret.

This image once again has a very dark feeling to it which I had hoped it would. I wish for people to look at this picture and really think about how hard it must be to care about and love someone so much and not being able to go on dates with them or hold hands with them at school or not being able to kiss them without being worried about who sees.

So that is my second image for my portfolio. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks again to my dear friends Diana and Amber

Bye :)

Vee Speers

Untitled #32, The Birthday Party Series

Vee Speers was born 1962 in Newcastle, Australia. She studied photography and fine art at Queensland College of Art. Her portraits have been exhibited and published world wide and are part of private collections as well as museum collections.

I actually couldn't find much information about her so yeah....that's all I have :/