Photographer research - Marwah Al-Mulgait

 http://www.marwahalmugait.com/#!mood-diary/clcg
Marwah Al-Mulgait is Saudi Arabian photographer who mainly takes photo documentary photographs that implement close up and intimate portraits that tend to capture private moments in people's lives. She originally was a commercial photographer, however began to develop an artists style before moving to taking photo journalistic photographs. Her series entitled "The Mood Diary" is a series of five images that depict a woman's battle with bipolar disorder in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

This is one of the images from Marwah's "The mood Diary" series, which depicts a woman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and her struggle with Bipolar disorder. This image I felt was good and relevant to my topic of mental health as it depicts the pain and despair people with mental disorders experience. The image shows two arms, with their hands very tightly gripping a pale pink bed sheet. They look as if they are being pulled away but are trying to resist it, which could be a metaphor for trying to avoid your depression and beat it. The colour of the bed sheet is also a significant part of this image. The sheet is pink, which is a colour that represents love, innocence and affection. However, the sheet is a muted shade of pink, and muted colours represent depressed moods and sadness, so the combination of using a colour associated with positive moods but using a muted shade could suggest that she is trying to feel love, innocence and affection but it is being made difficult by her depression.

 

This image is from the same series as the last image, and depicts the same woman who was the subject matter of the last image. This is another image that actually shows part of the woman the series is about, however this image shows some of what she is wearing, from  which we can draw connotations. She is wearing a silk fitting dress, which appears to have a floral pattern on it in saturated colours. The colours and patterns on her dress could be a reminder to her that she can still be happy and that there is still hope for beating her depression. The picture has been taken of the subject's feet from the shins down, and her feet are slightly levitating from the bed covers. This could imply that she feels disconnected from the world outside her mind because of her difficulty to feel emotions that others feel. Additionally, Marwah has used a strip of natural lighting to suggest that there is still some hope for her beating her depression.

This one. however, doesn't feature the woman who is the subject of this series, but rather an object associated with her. The image shows the headboard of what is likely her bed. The headboard is made of the pale green cushions, and there are two pillows on either side of the bed. The colour of the headboards is significant as green is a colour that represents growth and harmony. We could guess that she chose this colour as a remind her that she can grow into a stronger person, and that it is still possible for her to live in harmony with her mental illness and control it. Additionally, we can get connotations from the layout of the bed. The right side looks as if it hasn't been slept on, suggesting that she is a person who lives by routine, only sleeping on the left side. Finally, this one is much brighter in lighting compared to the previous image, so this image creates a much more hopeful mood than the previous image that implemented a small strip of light, and left the rest of the image in darkness.

The image above is another photo from the series that uses the imagery of bed covers to get across a key theme of the series. This image is by far the simplest in composition, as it contains no objects or people, but just the bedcovers. It has been taken from a bird's eye view and implements a similar lighting style to the image of the woman's feet in the dress; she uses natural lighting to light up half of the mattress and leaves the other half in complete darkness. The use of a simple diagonal divide between the lit section and the dark section creates a sense of chaos, as diagonal lines have connotations of this. The light and dark sections represent the hope of beating and overcoming her depression and the depression and mental illness itself. There are also some flowers printed on the bed sheet, which are another symbol of hope. They create a contrasting mood to the plain white cloth with the simple dark and light sections.