"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.
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Rest in Peace
Matthew Shepard
December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998
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