Nihilism, suicide and B&W prints

[John Kasaian]

Morbid, I realize, but the recent thread that brought up Woodman's suicide made me think about this and I wondered what your thoughts might be-----
Is there anything you could recognize in a photographic print which would indicate that the photographer is in need of immediate suicide intervention?
Health professionals on MSM provide us with endless lists of warning signs (heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, depression, cancer, suicide, etc...) that list not only physical warnings but also mental which manifest in verbal communication (denial, as an example.)
Since photographers communicate visually is there anything visually observable in one's photography that might indicate a serious, pressing problem?

[Jody_S]

Hdr?

[John Kasaian]

Hdr?

eh?

[Jody_S]

eh?

I was making a joke about depression and suicide.

Unless you score high on the psychotic side, most depressed and suicidal photographers stop making photographs, or may continue with some aspects but will stop finishing their work. A person might still shoot thousands of shots but stop developing them or printing them. Whenever I'm personally feeling down, I force myself to go out and shoot, scan and edit a bunch of pics, because that's my therapy. Could you tell from the finished product? I doubt it.

As for those with a strong psychotic side (not a bad thing, in the arts, and no I don't mean mentally ill), I think they don't generally gravitate to photography because it doesn't lend itself well to that kind of work. I've known exceptions, of course (excellent photographers whom I personally knew to be psychotic), but I didn't 'get' their work. And even they (well, the one person I knew well) took a multi-year break from photography in favor of meth when she was at her lowest.

[Alan Gales]

Hdr?

Jody, I think you are getting depression mixed up with schizophrenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

[Jody_S]

Jody, I think you are getting depression mixed up with schizophrenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

No, I don't think so. Psychosis is not an on/off binary construct. You can have a strong psychotic vector to your personality but be a perfectly healthy, happy, well-adjusted person. You can also be bipolar, schizophrenic, substance abuser, religious fanatic, etc. But simply having a psychotic side to your psyche is not sufficient to label someone as mentally ill, much less schizophrenic.

Given the original topic, I should point out though those mental illnesses on the psychotic spectrum do tend to have astronomical suicide rates.

[Jody_S]

Jody, I think you are getting depression mixed up with schizophrenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

Sorry, I missed the smiley-face. I guess because I knew the 'multiple-personality' Hollywood schizophrenia doesn't exist, I somehow thought you were being serious. I suppose HDR is a good visual approximation for that type of mental illness. Depression could be more along the lines of obsessing over the zone system for a decade only to completely lose it when Kodak discontinues your favorite film, then stashing $5,000 worth of it in your freezer only to refuse to shoot any of it, because when it's gone, it's gone.

[John Kasaian]

Sorry, I missed the smiley-face. I guess because I knew the 'multiple-personality' Hollywood schizophrenia doesn't exist, I somehow thought you were being serious. I suppose HDR is a good visual approximation for that type of mental illness. Depression could be more along the lines of obsessing over the zone system for a decade only to completely lose it when Kodak discontinues your favorite film, then stashing $5,000 worth of it in your freezer only to refuse to shoot any of it, because when it's gone, it's gone.

If I spent $5,000.00 on discontinued film I wouldn't need to kill myself---my family would have obliged my wishes immediately after the American Express statement showed up!

[StoneNYC]

(snip)... Depression could be more along the lines of obsessing over the zone system for a decade only to completely lose it when Kodak discontinues your favorite film, then stashing $5,000 worth of it in your freezer only to refuse to shoot any of it, because when it's gone, it's gone.

No, no, that's another mental illness most here are afraid to mention because they are probably suffering from it a little bit... they call it hoarding...

[Alan Gales]

Sorry, I missed the smiley-face. I guess because I knew the 'multiple-personality' Hollywood schizophrenia doesn't exist, I somehow thought you were being serious. I suppose HDR is a good visual approximation for that type of mental illness. Depression could be more along the lines of obsessing over the zone system for a decade only to completely lose it when Kodak discontinues your favorite film, then stashing $5,000 worth of it in your freezer only to refuse to shoot any of it, because when it's gone, it's gone.

I'm just joking around with you. One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is that you don't recognize what is real. HDR is fine when done so you can't tell it's been used but most people make these sickly sweet, unreal looking photos that look nothing like reality. After looking at a few of them in a row, I just want to gag.