The HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE

Hello, it is me, Adam Borman. I am a photographer based in Edmonton, Alberta, specializing in commercial, product, and editorial work. 

This past year, I created and captured a body of work entitled The Healthy Alternative. This was the first time I had ever created a standalone body of work and it was an experience that came with a lot of ups, downs, ‘Aha’ moments, deadends, mental computing, colours, patience, anxiety, and of course, fruit. The Healthy Alternative, I’ll mark as my first real endeavor creating a fine art body of work. 

With fine art work, typically the idea is premeditated prior to capturing the image of creating the work. My creative process works – fortunately, or unfortunately, I haven’t quite decided yet – the other way around. Since the beginning photography, I have always developed/visualized the image in my head first. Next  would come the planning and pre-production stage and then the capture session. Lastly, after I had finished creating the image, only then would I work out what I was attempting to say with it. And even after the fact, it is difficult for me to determine a meaning, if there even is one. 

Having had a few months to sit on and move The Healthy Alternative to the back of my mind, I have developed some personal ideas about what I am trying saying with it, or rather what it might be saying about me.

Here is an itemized list of broken down explanations of why I did certain things certain ways and for what reason.

  • USE of COLOUR: I absolutely love to work with color. On the very top surface level, colour is something that is very striking, uplifting and it can provide an emotionally light feeling. It is incredibly satisfying for me when I am able to create an image with a strong colour palette and colour theory/design. 
  • USE of DESIGN: Strong design elements go hand in hand with an effortful use of colour here. The design elements presented are largely used to achieve certain colour harmonies and add an overall graphical sense to the images.
  • USE of FRUIT: Uilitinzing fruit was simply an extension of colour and design. I cannot think of another widely accessible object that comes in a large variety of shapes, sizes, and colours. There are certain images that I could speak a bit further as to why I choose a certain fruit over another, but I’ll save that for another day.
  • USE of BLANK EXPRESSIONS, CLOSED EYES and COVERED/TURNED EYES/HEAD: It was only apparent to me while looking at the project as a whole as to why these images feature largely (I’ll use this next word as a catch-all when referring to the main point of this bullet) disconnected. Up until I was about 10 years old, I had always been a painfully shy child. I largely attribute this to my mother’s protectiveness and caring of and for me as a child. We were, and still are very close, but often times as a child it was her speaking for me when I went to see the doctor, or her calling the store when I wanted to see if they had a toy in stock. She really did not push me much to be outgoing. Breaking out of this shell has been something I have been working on since my early teenage years and it has been a very long and difficult process. I have certainly come a long way compared from where I even was this time last year. I am doing a lot better. I believe the disconnected expressions in The Healthy Alternative represent the shyness of my character. These expressions represent a part of me that is still there and a character trait that has shaped me as a whole. 
  • BACK to COLOUR: Going beyond the disconnected expressions I have just mentioned, the use of bold bright colours also relates back to my character in a very intrinsic sense. Those that I have become close with, breaking past the shy and somewhat private shell, would find me to be a rather charismatic and upbeat individual. I am not inherently boring and at times, I can be quite eccentric and passionate. 
  • ULTIMATELY: The use of vibrant colour palette and the ‘disconnect’ between the subject and viewer reveal who I am on a base level. These two sides of me artistically and personally came together in this body of work. I suppose this collection of images equate down to a self-portrait of me. 

You can view The Healthy Alternative in full by clicking here: http://www.adamborman.com/the-healthy-alternative

Thanks to Sawyer Patterson for helping me put my thoughts into words. Here are some fun, Photoshop layer build-up GIFs of some of the images coming to life. 

Thank you for reading. Goodbye.

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