mentalhealth

Read This If You’ve Ever Been Scared Before a Photo Shoot

In the age of increased mental health awareness, it is important to address some mental health issues that photographers may have to cope with. For many, that is primarily anxiety. In this article, I will break down a few ways you can be less anxious before and during a shoot.

My Photographic Chronicle of Bipolar Disorder

Almost four years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Finding this diagnosis for me was a huge change (a positive one), and that led me to start a journey that continues to this day, where the mental stability that I have is maintained. I lived through many things and something curious is how the disorder began to show before I gave it a name, through my photos.

Photographers on Facing Up to Mental Health in a Pandemic

For someone like myself, who suffers from quite bad anxiety during normal times, it’s safe to say facing potentially a whole calendar year of no work or income isn’t exactly a great tonic for one’s mental health. I have joked with my wife for a while now that at some point I want to take a year off -- this isn’t quite what I had in mind!

Mental Health Help for Photographers (And Everyone Else)

As amusing as some COVID-19 memes and tweets have been (not to mention a welcome break from the endless news cycle), we want to be very clear about the importance of taking care of your mental health right now.

You’re Not Alone: All Photographers Go Through Slow Periods

Although some may feel like I'm some sort of rockstar photographer that is so busy he has to turn down work he doesn't want, the truth of the matter is right now I am just a guy sitting on a rock typing out a letter to people he has never met with the hopes that it helps just one person keep their head up.

Employees Say Instagram is Hiding Likes to Make You Post More: Report

From the beginning of its "experiment" with hiding likes, Instagram has maintained that the move is meant to improve users' mental health. But according to three former Facebook employees, there's another, more selfish reason why the photo sharing app is making this change: it'll get you to post more often.

A Few Tips on Mental Resilience for Creatives

Fortunately, we are beginning to find ourselves in a world where it's okay to open up a little more about mental health. It’s great! It’s the age of empathy and humility now, and I think once we begin to empathize properly with each other, we’ll be in a much better place. We’ve all got the same prehistoric brain, and it’s surprising how you can begin to essentially ‘re-program’ your thoughts.

My Surreal Photography is a Reflection on Years of Depression

My name is Gabriel Isak. Over the past year, I have been working on a collection of images in which I wanted to depict the internal world of solitary people who symbolize our own unconscious states. The work is inspired by the years I went through depression, where I wanted to reflect human experiences that would allow the viewer to reflect on their own journey.

How This Photographer is Using His Camera to Combat Depression

Photographer Greg Sheard has suffered from depression for nearly two decades now, but two years ago he took up a new weapon in his fight against it: his camera. In this 5-minute video, Sheard shares his personal experience in how photography has been helping him combat depression.

This Photographer Deals with Anxiety by Creating Surreal Self-Portraits

Monica Lazăr is one of the millions upon millions of people around the world who struggles with an anxiety condition. For her, social anxiety makes it difficult to spend time with other people and causes her to become isolated. Four years ago, however, Lazăr discovered a passion for photography, and her gorgeous self-portraits have changed her life.

Mental Health . . . A Photographer’s Perspective (this isn’t going to be easy)

As photographers, writers, illustrators, actors, musicians... As creatives, we create the world that we exist in, we create the world that the rest of the world sees.

This is a gift, it is our gift and it is the soul of the saying that we “are gifted.” While many are brought up to view doctors and lawyers as having greater intellectual prowess, the truth of the matter is that it takes a VERY strong mind to visualize and then create our art.

But what happens when that mind turns against us?

Photographer Captures the Experiences of Mentally Ill Prison Inmates

Due to the evaporation of funding that supports mental health facilities, many prisons across the United States have been given the extra duty of treating those who are mentally ill. These patient-prisoners are often trapped within the systems with no where else to go for better treatment.

Trapped is a project by Minneapolis, Minnesota-based photographer Jenn Ackerman that shares the experiences of these prisoners through gritty black-and-white photographs.