All Associate and Fellow submissions must be accompnaied by a Statement of Intent, and this is critical in setting the context in which the images are to be interpreted. Therefore, please take the time to read the Statement of Intent for this panel below:
These images represent and remind me of a time when I was troubled by anxiety and the challenges I experienced trying to escape from it.
In 2022, I was struck by severe anxiety and I walked extensively as a distraction from my physical symptoms. The summer heatwave encouraged me to explore town in the cooler early hours of daybreak. Particularly around that time of day, I found small pockets of sunlight reflected off windows and into the shadows. The glare often narrowly missed an opportunity to provide radiance via an opening, rested unregarded on a largely featureless wall or was cast onto paving to be trodden underfoot.
This corresponded to my disposition and journey back to mental wellbeing: I felt overwhelmingly gloomy, belittled and downtrodden. Whilst therapy provided some glimpses of hope, like the reflected sunlight, the rays of hope lacked clarity, appeared distorted, misaligned, fuzzy and were not yet providing the promised illumination. I sought to understand the patterns of light just as I endeavoured to grasp unfamiliar psychological techniques intended to regain control of my thoughts and feelings.
Making a photographic representation of my journey gave me calm as an alternative to the pernicious angst racing through my body and mind, then a sense of purpose and fulfilment that was otherwise absent from my daily existence. Photography, combined with other actions, ultimately helped me to break the vicious cycle of anxiety.
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