A look inside yourself: stunning pictures of photographers experiencing depression

About 350 million people around the world suffer from depression, and almost every one of them is alone in their struggle. It is not customary to talk about such diseases openly, but a constant sense of fear, anxiety, oppression and social rejection forces people to go into isolation and permanently put an end to normal life. Fortunately, this does not happen to everyone. Some famous photographers who have gone through all the nightmares of depressive disorders are ready to break taboos and share their stories through creativity. Once it helped them to be cured, and perhaps it will help now those who feel lonely and lost. See 10 photographers who can shed light on the taboo subject.

Edward Honaker

Edward Honker was 19 when he was diagnosed with depression. On self-portraits devoted to this life stage, he openly demonstrates the feeling of total isolation that swallowed him during illness. The entire horror of his fortune, Honaker concludes in gloomy images without faces, placed in a gloomy black and white reality. "Your mind is you," Honaker says, "when it stops working properly, it's really scary."

Janelia Mold

Janela Mould specializes in surrealistic images. They became the basis for her project "Melancholy - a girl named Depression." Janelia Mold, working on it, set a goal to destroy the social stigma imposed on this disease. That's why none of the self-portraits of the photographer you will not see a person. "I purposely got rid of the head and some limbs," says Janelia, "with the help of characters who will never feel whole, I wanted to show the world how a depressed person feels."

Gabriel Isak

Light can be found in the subject, and proof of this - the photographs of Gabriel Isaka from the series "Blue Journey". To create the project, the photographer used his depression as a source of inspiration. Gabriel Isak worked on him all seven years of his stay in the power of the disease. "My subconscious has become an inspiration for most photographs," he says. "They are pieces of memories of what I went through during the depression."

Cathy Joy Crawford

Emotional series of self-portraits Cathy Joy Crawford demonstrates all the facets of her inner struggle with anxiety disorder. The excruciating emotions experienced by a person who is in captivity with his own mind are reflected in every photograph. Sharing himself in a bird's cage, created from thoughts, plunging his mind into dense clouds, tying himself food film, the photographer shows the state in which she was in the time of illness. The process of creating the project "My anxious heart" was for Cathy Joy Crawford a kind of therapy. She hopes that he will help other people who are faced with a similar problem.

John William Kidi

Photographer John William Kidi, struggling with an anxiety disorder for 9 years, presented a series of photographs "Barely noticeable." With their help, it penetrates into the lives of people suffering from mental disorders, and explores their behavior, the deviations in which, as the name of the project hints, may be hardly noticeable to others.

Michal Maku

To convey with the help of photographs the right emotions and thoughts, the photographer Michal Maku created his own art technique called "cage". He applies a gelatinous emulsion to the negatives in order to achieve the necessary dramatic effect. On the photographs, Mac seems to want to tear himself to pieces or try his best to go beyond the image. Each work of the photographer is characterized by quite strong emotional tension and fully conveys the state of anxiety, depression and subsequent self-destruction.

Maureen Drennan

In her photo project "The Sea that surrounds us," Morin Drennan talks about the deep depression of her husband Paul and about his own way of knowing and accepting his condition. In it, a photo of a sullen man alternates with images of desert landscapes. The latter became the embodiment of the distance that arose between Paul and Maureen in this period, and the internal state of a woman during her husband's depression. "The sea that surrounds us" is a photo project reminding how fragile the inner world of each of us can be and how difficult it is sometimes to understand a loved one and share his emotions.

Christian Hopkins

For Christian Hopkins, photography has become a salvation from depression. In his work he tried to find himself using surrealistic images. Like many, Hopkins struggled with his self-awareness. "I suffered from a deep depression for 4 years, I was fighting every day with who I was," Hopkins admits, "and that's reflected in my work."

Liz Osban

To describe the feelings experienced during one of the darkest periods of her life, Liz Osban went to Iceland with her young man. Photographs in cold dark blue tones made there, became the embodiment of her feelings during the depression. "With their help, I want to convey the fact that life with a mental disorder did not deprive me of hope for the future and did not make me accept a static existence." Despite everything, I can go forward, "says Osban.

Tyler Reibern

The photo helped to survive a deep depression and Tyler Reibern. "I was so depressed at a certain time that I was ready to kill myself," the photographer admits, "I would not want anyone to experience such a state." Creativity, convinced Rayburn, saved him, and in him there really is something that gives hope. His pictures are full of warm light and look peaceful due to the incredible beauty of the nature imprinted on them.