Why am I Sad
This in progress body of work is a self-reflection of who I am as a person
and my connection to photography. Growing up back in a small town in
Israel, I spent most of my time inside my room. I felt alone both outside
those walls and inside of them. I was always alone even when I was around
others. My house never really felt like a home, and my room was not an
escape it was just all I had. Family was not a comfort; it was a cause for
much of the stress, anxiety and mainly the sadness I felt.
My mother, even though we didn’t speak about it often, suffers from
clinical depression. I saw her lose more and more of herself, becoming less
and less a person I understood. When you are young you just think of it as
if your mom is just a little sad, so it makes sense that you also are – a
little sad sometimes.
It took me years to understand how it really affected me and my own
struggles with depression.
As I grew older, and my frustration of the situation grew, I found myself
hiding in my room for days, hours and years, buried with my head down in
this sand prison. I just felt sad all the time. I felt like there was no
escape. Ever.
In this loneliness, I found comfort in photography. With my camera it would
be just me in my room and a random object like an eggshell, a figurine, a
mirror etc. and I could have it tell my story for me. Photography allowed
me to take my inner dialogue and bring it out by using still life as my
personal coded language. I was able to communicate with these objects
better than people. They told the story I was not able to.
Now, years after moving as far as I could from that room, I find myself
still being sad. Photography has become not just an escape but now also my
burden. When I don’t photograph, I am sad, and when I do photograph my
images are sad as well as if I am no longer able to escape the cloud of sad
that is above me. "Why am I Sad?” is my exploration of my personal
relationship to photography and the world that I see through my camera’s
lens. It is an open question that I don’t intend to answer but I hope that
I can find comfort in it once more.
This in progress body of work is a self-reflection of who I am as a person
and my connection to photography. Growing up back in a small town in
Israel, I spent most of my time inside my room. I felt alone both outside
those walls and inside of them. I was always alone even when I was around
others. My house never really felt like a home, and my room was not an
escape it was just all I had. Family was not a comfort; it was a cause for
much of the stress, anxiety and mainly the sadness I felt.
My mother, even though we didn’t speak about it often, suffers from
clinical depression. I saw her lose more and more of herself, becoming less
and less a person I understood. When you are young you just think of it as
if your mom is just a li [read more...]
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