I still can’t forget the creepy vibe this abandoned Finnamore Wood prison gave me. Brrr! I had an old post about this but I wanted to re-do the post and refresh the content of it. This is an old photography project I did in 6th form which was on the topic of Mental Illness. And the portrayal of this through movies and modern day media. As I was on the hunt for a location which looked remotely like a mental hospital.
MY PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT TOPIC:
MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE MEDIA
The closest I could find was Finnamore Wood Prison in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. It used to be a Young Offenders correctional facility and then it was a holiday camp during the second world war which housed evacuees from schools and refugees. Find out about the history of the prison here!
I wanted to showcase most of my pieces – these are my favourites and definitely my better images from this project. I decided to edit all of the images black and white to show the tone in the images and to give off that ‘creepy’ dark vibe of a prison/mental hospital and to show all of the dirt and rust.
This project was definitely my most favourite out of the 3 I did in 6th form as I felt like I had more to work with and my inspiration was very strong to help me along with this project, my final piece was a collage of images selected by me which reflected the Mental Illness topic well – including some edited images from this collection and Finnamore Wood Prison.
MY INSPIRATION FOR THE PROJECT
My inspiration for this project was 3 horror movies from each century which showed mental illness from the 20th and 21st centuries. From the 20th century I chose Psycho (1960), One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (1975), The Shining (1980) and from the 21st century I chose: A Beautiful Mind (2001), The Ward (2010) and Shutter Island (2010). Before starting on this project I created a mood board in my portfolio selecting images from each movie which showed the different mental illnesses and researched how each movie portrayed mental illness also how the audiences reacted to this as well as writing down all the different ideas I had for each movie to create and base my images on.
LOCATION: Finnamore Wood Prison – Frieth, Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Something was on the news about the cancellation of Henley regatta due to this covid 19 lockdown that lead me to thinking of the time when “we” the inmates of finnamore wood helped set up and operated a kid sized merry go round with a manual cranking handle . Inmates where used to help with a lots of local events , i also marshalled at a Motorcross even that was great fun. I also left finnamore wood with a city and guilds , painting and decorating . The course was 26 weeks but i completed it in 9 weeks and and spent the rest of my time helping “H” Henry the teacher with less able inmates . I think i even got a 20pence pay rise for that .
One officer named something like Beacher or beachem its so long ago now was nicknamed ” the sniffer dog” as he could smell someone smoking a joint/ sliff from the other side off the camp .
One thing i was a little concerned about with your article it was never used for mental heath inmated im sure they would of just walked out being fully open and any one violent or unsettled would remain at Huntington borstal
i spent 10 months at finnamore wood,it was a borstal then that was 1980,then i went back again 1981 for 9 month,i found it ok,not like the other borstals i had been in,i was transferred from Feltham,i walked out of finnamore 1982 with a city and guilds,i was on the garden party,one day a week outside collage,one of the screws took us for a pint every week in a pub in marlow,crazy when i look back,im 55 now,the last 3 months of my sentence i was in hut 4,we had a colour tv,outside visits every 2 weeks,i use to go home for the day i lived in Watford then,the food was good plenty of it,none of our rooms had locks,you could do a runner if you wanted to but no one did when i was there as when they caught you you was sent to Feltham,now that place was a nightmare,the screws lived on site and we used to delever there coal in the winter on a tractor i use to drive it,how mad is that,and one of the screws use to make us a cuppa in his wooden bungalow,it really was like a holiday camp,thanks,jason
This is such a great post – so interesting!
You should definitely do more posts like this. My favourite collection of images are from day two.