“This series was meant to be a visual representation of being ‘suffocated’ or overwhelmed by your thoughts; it’s a continuation of a self-portrait concept I shot back in 2019,” says photographer Najiyyah Floyd to the Phoblographer in an interview. “The idea came from my own experience of feeling overwhelmed by my constant overthinking. I was sitting in my apartment one day consumed by my thoughts, unable to make a move without overanalyzing the next.” She then decided to channel this energy into creativity. So Najiyyah gathered some yarn and got to work.
All images by Najiyyah Floyd. Used with permission. Please check out her website and Instagram @oddyworld.
“My eyes ended up landing on this thick pink fuzzy yarn I had purchased to make a chunky knit sweater with and the visual just came to me. The fact that the yarn was pink and ended up resembling a brain was pure coincidence at the time.”
Najiyyah Floyd
That image turned into a conceptual series which has earned Najiyyah some acclaim. And honestly, it’s very relatable — at times we can all feel like we’re being suffocated by anxiety. Lots of us talk about feeling like our heads are underwater and none of us take the idea of being suffocated differently. But this series perfectly illustrates it — and also talks about how we don’t really know or understand how someone else might be feeling.
In that way, it’s the ultimate statement of empathy for other humans. You may never know the extent of their ruminating thoughts or the anxious feelings they deal with day to day,” she tells us. The idea is hammered home even more with the pregnant mother being wrapped up in the yarn. The same thing can be said of the teenager, the artist, etc. We could all easily be put into the yarn ourselves.
Najiyyah was very intentional about the colors she used for the series — but she also had to be flexible about it. Originally, the pregnant hero in the photographs was supposed to have a cobalt blue ball and a white shirt. “Blue being used to represent qualities like stability and calmness, while contrasting with the orange to represent optimism, warmth, and liveliness,” she explains. We’ll let her continue to explain below:
My teen muse was meant to be in earth tones, presenting with a green ball and neutral wardrobe; either all white, tan or blue jean look. Aiming to represent growth as it’s found in nature, with the sage green symbolizing wisdom, intelligence and experience. Finally, my artist muse was meant to represent working through a creative block so I wanted him to have a black ball with a black jean outfit, so that the paint on his palette would be the main source of color. Unfortunately, I struggled to find these colors in the type of yarn I wanted to use (chunky, wool) at an affordable price for the amount I needed that would get to me in time. So I ended up compromising on the colors a bit because I was not willing to forgo the original chunky wool look. The craft store near me only had about 4 different colors in the chunky wool style, luckily one of them was sage green and I just ended up going with a soft blue and brown for the other colors. Though I was able to find the sage green to go with my teen muse, I ended up switching her to the soft blue so that my pregnant muse could be in the green because I didn’t want the blue to come off as a potential indication of the sex of the babies.
Najiyyah Floyd
Floyd has come a long way since 2013 when she started doing photography. Back then, she was enamored with Tumblr. From there, she ended up traveling, borrowing a friend’s camera, and shooting portraits. These days, she uses a humble Canon Rebel T2i with the kit lens and a 50mm prime. Eventually she took a black and white photography course and got a Minolta XG-A. “Around 2021 I started carrying around my sister’s childhood point-and-shoot camera, a Kodak EasyShare C613, just to have something light on hand every once in a while,” Najiyyah says. “I also like to reach for this camera whenever I want more of a dated, grainy look.” She believes that it’s the photographer who makes the image in the end.
That idea permeates into her ideas on AI imagery. To her, it’s all about humanity. “The glorification of human features is what makes me love portraiture as much as I do,” Najiyyah Floyd explains. “There is something about having your camera focused in on someone’s face that creates such a vulnerable moment that I just feel so blessed to be a part of and capture. With that being said, when it comes to all of the emerging AI photos I have somewhat of a love-hate perspective.” She believes transparency is key to the future of photography. But at the same time, she doesn’t think that we’ve evolved enough morally to responsibly handle AI.
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.