I would need to create a website or blog to showcase this. Unfortunately for me I was only able to talk to two women about the menopause and there troubles which doesn’t help with the sound part of this project. I think some women are embarrassed to talk about this issue and I have found that a lot of women over a certain age don’t like their photographs being taken, especially when you don’t know them so well either.

I think if I were able to collect more stories and record peoples voices to go with photographs of them or even videos then this would work as a piece. Each individual persons story could be uploaded to a website and then maybe a messaging system could be added so that women could share with each other over the internet as I suppose they are hidden and not outrightly speaking face to face which can be embarrassing.

Another route I could take would be to look further into premature menopause, it seems to me after researching about the condition that it is not as well know than the normal menopause. I found different blogs online showing menopause stories but not many on premature menopause. Although I don’t quite know how I would go about finding (especially) young women who are going through this change I think that creating a blog or webpage showing a photo film piece for young people going through the change would be encouraging for them to view or help tak part in.

Premature menopause is when the final menstrual period occurs before the age of 40 although in some cases women can be in their teens. One story I found on the nhs website was about a woman called Johanna, she has one period when she was 13 and that was it.

“I went back to the doctors a few times. They said it was normal for things to settle into some sort of pattern. I had the mood swings and the hot flushes but I put that down to puberty and being a moody teenager rather than the menopause. I started having a series of blood tests at 16 and, when I was 17, I was diagnosed.

“I had two great aunts and neither of them were able to have children, so I wondered whether it might be the same thing.”

Women who have an early menopause have an increased risk of osteoporosisdue to reduced oestrogen levels. Because of this, most doctors recommend HRT until a woman reaches the normal age of natural menopause.

Though she isn’t on HRT, Johanna has been on the pill since her diagnosis. “It was ironic really, given that it is a contraceptive, but it balanced my oestrogen levels and I still take it now. I was also on calcium tablets.”

However, the calcium hasn’t been sufficient to protect Johanna’s bones, which were affected from an early age. “I had various scans at 21. When the results came back, they revealed my hip bone was the same as that of a 65-year-old woman,” she says.

“I’ve got very osteoporotic bones but it hasn’t affected me a great deal. I haven’t had any fractures but I have to be careful.”

I think that researching into the premature menopause could be another area I could look into, after trawling through pages online a lot of information is available regarding the menopause and I have found lots of sufferers stories but not so many on premature menopause. I don’t know how I would go about finding someone to interview and photograph that is as young as Johanna, or even older than that.

The first image of my mum, although slightly strange with her eyes half shut, was the one she said looked like she felt some days, completely drained and exhausted, had enough of everything for that moment.

Sarah: When did you start going through the menopause?

Tracey: Over a year ago I stopped having periods and was worried I was pregnant, so I went to the doctors and they told me I was probably going through the change.

Sarah: So when did you start experiencing symptoms?

Tracey: The beginning of this summer I started having a lot of hot flashes, I knew it was the menopause because of my periods stopping. I didn’t realise they would be as frequent as they were and went back to the doctors to see what medicine I could take. He told me to jot down what time of the day I was getting the flashes so he could see how many I was getting, at the worst time I was getting 4-5 an hour. I also had these during the night which would then keep me up and I wasn’t getting any sleep. I haven’t experienced any mood swings though which I guess is a bonus.

Sarah: Did you go back to the doctors for medication?

Tracey: I went back and he gave me some heart rate tablets which I had to take in the mornings, but these didn’t releave my syptoms and I was always tired so I stopped taking them. My mother, who still gets hot flashes told me to try herbal methods so I started taking black cohosh which is supposed to ease the symptoms of hot flashes and night sweats but this didn’t work for me either. So I went back to the doctors again and was put on HRT but this made me feel constantly miserable, and tired, the flashes went down but I didn’t feel myself so I stop taking those aswell. I am now using a cream my friend suggested to me called Serenity and it works brilliantly for me. I still have the hot flashes but no way near as many as I used to. I put a dab of this cream on different parts of my body, you are supposed to put it on fatty areas where it gets stored, like your thighs, bum or upper arms. I never thought a cream would work so well and I’m glad I’m not pumping drugs into my body. I also drink a bedtime tea which helps me sleep through the night.

Sarah: What would you say to other women suffering with the menopause who don’t know what methods of medication to take?

Tracey: Well I know everyone can be different, I have a friend who is going through the menopause and gets the weird sensation you get when the hot flash is about to come but she doesn’t get the hot part. And other women I know suffer worse than me. I think the thing to do is to be persistent with the medicine you take, keep trying different ways to ease the symptoms, I went through a lot but I know there is still more out there to keep trying if it doesn’t work.

All women will experience the menopause. Natural menopause takes place when the ovaries become unable to produce the hormones estrogen and progesterone. Menopause can also occur when the ovaries are damaged by specific treatment such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or when the ovaries are removed, often at the time of a hysterectomy. Ovaries naturally fail to produce estrogen and progesterone when they have few remaining egg cells; the maximum number of egg cells in the ovaries is present before birth, with a reduced number already at birth, gradual reduction from puberty, and a rapid decline from 40 onwards. With less egg cells, the ovaries become less able to respond to hormones from the pituitary gland in the brain: follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinising hormone (LH) and less estrogen is produced. Levels of FSH and LH subsequently rise and a measurement of FSH is sometimes used to diagnose menopause. The resulting low, and changing levels of ovarian hormones, particularly estrogen, are thought to be the cause of menopausal symptoms and later consequences in many women.

The term climacteric refers to the time in which the hormone levels are changing, up to the periods stopping; reducing and changing hormone levels can cause early menopausal symptoms. At this stage, there may still be enough hormones produced to stimulate the lining of the womb (endometrium) to produce monthly periods (menstruation).

Menopause means the last menstrual period. Periods stop because the low levels of estrogen and progesterone do not stimulate the lining of the womb (endometrium) in the normal cycle. Hormone levels can fluctuate for several years before eventually becoming so low that the endometrium stays thin and does not bleed

My first idea foe the Phonar final task was the base the project on my brother. This is something I started in the first year and continued into the second but have since stopped documenting. I have a very close relationship with my brother which I feel very lucky to have, but when really thinking about what story I wanted to show in this final task I couldn’t decide what would be of interest to an audience. After much more thinking I came up with an idea that I could work with for the final task.

What/who’s story are you going to tell?

I will be telling a story about my mum. This summer she started going through the menopause. This has changed her day to day life and she now has had to make changes to her daily routine and lifestyle. Although the changes only started 5 months ago already she has been on a series of different medications, constantly trying new potions and lotions to try and ease the side affects the menopause can bring.

What are the broader issues that your project will discuss?

I think the broader issues will be directly on women who suffer with the menopause and how it affects them. Many women may never experience the symptoms that can come with the change. However others can suffer and it can drastically affect their day to day lives. I shall look at the different types of medication that is available for women and also at what age women start going through the change, in some rare cases women in there 20s can go through the menopause meaning their ovaries run out of eggs earlier than expected thus making it harder to conceive.

Who will be most interested in hearing/engaging with the story?

I think the people that will be most interested in the story will be other women going through this change in their lives. I found out that 70% of women have physical symptoms during the menopause, but only 10% seek help. I think documenting women who are going through the menopause will help other women who are in the same boat try to cope with and keep as controlled in regards to symptoms as best they can. Sharing stories or discussing issues could help women support each other.

How are you going to facilitate that?

I am not 100% sure how I will facilitate this. I suppose if I am to create a photo film or video I will need to upload this either to my blog or create a new blog/webpage specifically for this cause. I could ask people I know to start with if they would mind me photographing/interviewing them on their experiences and then hopefully branch out from there.

Build and include a soundscape relevant to your story. Include personal stories from the subjects depicted.

I thoroughly enjoyed this task, I learnt so much about my family I didn’t know and spent hours and hours just looking through old photos with my mum and uncle, listening to their stories. A lot of these stories seemed to be based on their annual holidays camping in the West of France. My uncle provided me with a story that was very memorable to him. When I recorded his voice to let me know the story I was first just recording his voice so I could then re record it myself, but the way he told the story and the emotions it brought up showed in his voice so I decided to keep it and use it as the soundscape. There was more sound recordings to use but some of the photographs, although relevant to the story, didn’t fit with what he was saying and seemed irrelevant to put into the artefact.

I found this task quite challenging, at first to think of a personal story that I wanted to share with the group and then how I would tell this story. I have lots of personal stories that I could share but that I am not ready for people to know about, I think some things can be too sensitive to share to people who aren’t close to you.

I have some memories of my grandparents but some stick out more than others. It was quite upsetting to bring this memory back up and even writing about it got me choked up. When recording the first few times I got a ‘wobbly’ voice as I could feel myself getting upset, and sometimes rushing and not taking time for the listener to really listen to the words. This is a story about when my grandad died.

Spoken Narrative by Sarah Worthington

For this task we had to chose one of Michael David Murphy’s “Unphotographable” posts and create a multimedia narrative. We had to use our own images, and create an accompanying sound. As I was late at starting this task the web link with Michael’s texts went offline so I could no longer view them. I looked to the facebook page and other what other people had chosen on vimeo. I chose 3 texts to possibly use to create the multimedia narrative. The first

“This is a picture I did not take of a woman in a green sweatshirt exiting a public bathroom, eating a hotdog”,

second

“This is a picture I did not take of a cardboard box sitting on the sidewalk in front of the post office, like a package that someone was so exited to receive they wouldn’t wait to open it, and they walked out of the post office and peeled back the lid to find it was filled with nothing but brown leaves, and in sadness or bewilderment, just left in there on the sidewalk, abandoned.”

and third

“This is an image I did not take, of a cold autumnal journey home, losing myself within my seemingly well known surroundings, dawdling regrettably home, and then running to catch the last bus home.”

My first attempt at the second piece of text did not go as I had hoped and so I decided to attempt the third piece of text. This however, I later realised was not in fact a text of Murphy’s but of a fellow classmate Dorrell Merritt. However the multimedia narrative I created with Dorrell’s text was far better than the one I attempted first. So credit to Dorrell for his “Unphotographable” text.

Link below.

http://vimeo.com/33215539

http://vimeo.com/33234677