Why do people make decisions that harm them in the long term?

This project investigates the psychological phenomenon of temporal discounting.
This describes the human tendency to value immediate benefits more highly than future consequences—even if these are harmful in the long term. Decisions such as smoking, unhealthy eating, or poor posture are often not the result of ignorance, but rather an expression of this deeply rooted mechanism.

Based on personal observations and research, the idea arose to capture the topic photographically on the street.
There, I searched for authentic moments that reflect this conflict between short-term pleasure and long-term consequences. The photographs were deliberately taken spontaneously and intuitively—a departure from controlled photography toward a dynamic, often random visual language.

The project was created as part of Open Class: CARE, led by Prof. Johanna Diehl, and was shown at the exhibition opening in January 2025 and at the Bergwerk at the end of the 2025 semester.