1. Primary Research
In order to determine the audience for my final major project I have
conducted primary research through a survey consisting of 6 questions which
distributed via the social media outlet Facebook therefore providing me with
feedback relating to my idea from a range of different people.
Are you male or female?
Firstly I asked what gender the participant was due to the fact that I was
curious weather this particular idea would appeal more to one specific
gender.
Although I tried to gain an equal number of male and female participants, as
you can see from the graph above 60% of the people who answered were
female and the remaining 40% were male.
What is your age?
The second question I asked was in regards to the participants age, again
due to the fact that I was curious as to weather or not my idea would appeal
more to a specific age range.
As you can see from the graph above 60% of the participants were aged
between 15 to 19, 30% were aged between 20 to 25 and the remaining 10%
were aged over 40.
Do you or someone close to you suffer from a mental illness?
The reason for asking this particular question was due the fact that not only
was I curious to find out how common mental illnesses are but also to
determine weather or not having a mental illness themselves or being close to
someone who has one would increase their interest in this particular idea and
weather the idea would also appeal to those who are not familiar with
mental health illnesses.

2. As you can see from the chart above 90% of people who answered this
survey either had a mental illness or are close to someone who does in
contrast to a small 10% who are not familiar with mental health illnesses. These
results suggest that mental health illnesses are a lot more common than
people think and therefore this particular idea is tackling something which
over the years has become increasingly more common, although not many
people tend to talk about it.
What do you think about the idea of a photography project which will feature
images portraying what it is like to live with a mental illness?
I then asked this question in order to determine weather the factors i
established in the previous questions, gender, age and familiarity with mental
health would effect how they feel about this particular project therefore
enabling me to establish the audience for my project.
50% of people responded that this idea was a very good idea, all of which
were aged between 19 - 25 and were both male and female, as goes for the
40% of people who responded that this was a good idea, therefore
suggesting that this particular idea doesn't just appeal to one specific gender
and in fact appeals to both. 10% of the people who responded answered
OK, therefore suggesting that they are least interested in this idea in contrast
to the people who selected very good or good.
What I found interesting about these results is that the people who answered
OK were the same participants that had selected that they did not or was not
close to someone who suffered from a mental illness for example:

3. This to me suggests that my particular idea will appeal more to people who
are familiar with mental illnesses in someway, maybe due to the fact that they
are more likely to be able to relate to the images personally.
Would photography tackling mental health interest you?
When asked weather or not photography tackling mental health interests
you? 305 of the people answered no with the remaining 70% answering yes.
Again what I found interesting is that 10% of the 30% of people who answered
no were the same 10% who selected that they had not suffered themselves or
close to anyone who has suffered, again anchoring the fact that my final
major project will appeal more to those who are familiar with mental health
illnesses. Another thing I found was that another 10% of the 30% who
answered no were all aged 40+ therefore meaning that everyone who
answered yes were aged ranged between 15 and 25 suggesting that this
particular idea appeals more to a younger demographic rather than an older
one.
What would you expect to see from an image tackling mental health?
Finally I asked this question in order to gain a variety of answers enabling me
to understand what the audience themselves would expect to see from the
images I intend to produce, below are a few of the answers I received:
Therefore I will take all these comments in consideration when producing my
images.