Final Project - Justin Larson

Through the Eyes of an Insomniac

     “Through the Eyes of an Insomniac” is a collection of pictures taken throughout the night.  This collection consists of eight different photographs.  With these photographs, I tried to portray what it is like to be an insomniac.  I sought to capture the tossing and turning, the clock watching, the night wandering, and the home remedies for insomnia.  I wanted others to understand the challenges faced and see what a night is like for a person with insomnia.  All of the pictures in “Through the Eyes of an Insomniac” were taken with a high ISO (3200-6400) because there was very little light used and it was night time.  I also used a big aperture (3.5-8) so that the little amount of light would brighten the pictures and so that the viewer could clearly see what was going on in the photograph.  For the shutter speed, I used a relatively slow shutter speed (1/10-1/60) since it was dark.  Because of the slow shutter speed, I needed to use a tripod.  For most of the pictures, I used a desk lamp for light. 

     In deciding what to do my project on, I knew that I wanted to do it on a medical condition.  I considered depression, anxiety, paranoia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.  One night, while laying on my bed contemplating my options, I glanced at the clock on my nightstand and realized that it was 1:15 am.  Just like a light bulb turning on, I had an idea.  I could do my project on insomnia because I am an insomniac.  The gears in my head began to turn as I came up with ideas of how to get started and what I would do.  This is where my motivation to do this project came from.  To begin with, I decided to talk to people about insomnia to see if people knew what it was all about.  Many of the people I talked to didn’t know very much about it, so I decided that this project’s purpose would be to show others what insomniacs experience when they can’t sleep at night.  I decided to photograph this project through a first-person perspective so that the viewer would feel like they were experiencing insomnia for themselves.  All of the pictures were taken from an insomniac’s perspective.  The settings I chose to take all of the pictures in were my bedroom and the kitchen, since these two rooms are where insomniacs end up when they can’t sleep.