Bridge Over Troubled Water

Abstract

This work is my response to the depression I've been struggling with for the last two years. During this time I lost interest in the many things that once engrossed me, but I found that photography, for the most part, still held my attention. At a certain point I realized that making photographs to fight the depressive symptoms could help not only me, but potentially others wrestling with the same things. Though I aimed to create a body of work that expressed how I feel, it occurred to me that making any work at all was important, and I found myself looking back at any photos I had made during this time. As a result, there's a combination of images that convey how I feel, and images that, to me, show my resilience through thick and thin. What's described in the image doesn't necessarily display this, but rather the existence of the image itself; I was practicing photography without thinking about my depression and how I wanted to respond to it. If something caught my attention, my camera was ready, and a photograph would be made. The body of work is titled Bridge Over Troubled Water, and is intended to focus not only on how depression feels, but what my "bridges" are. Photographs of people, places, and things I love show the ups and downs of depression and the lights that shine in the dark. A photo of an upright sand dune symbolizing a wall; birds symbolizing freedom and the longing for it; a tree symbolizing growth. In addition to showing my "bridges" in the photographs, the images are sewn together by the idea that photography itself is, for me, a bridge over troubled water.