Photos taken by Danielle, a photographer in her thirties who suffers from major depressive disorder and falls somewhere on the bipolar spectrum. She recently spent two weeks at a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts where she did an intensive residential program.
About these photos: “I took these photographs several months ago during my stay at a mental hospital. I was not in a locked unit, so one night before curfew I went out with a fellow patient for a walk. We stumbled upon a very creepy abandoned hospital building and had an eerie encounter with something very ghostly when I tried to take photos with my phone. Seriously. Despite my fear, I went back the next night with my real camera, and came across a second abandoned building – shown in these photos – boarded up, with broken windows and crooked columns. I could barely see anything because those buildings are no longer lit, but I shot in the dark, and somehow managed to take a handful of pictures that actually came out once I brightened them in Lightroom. Amazing since they were taken in pitch darkness.
I feel that these photos represent change. How things change over time, how they may deteriorate and break down, but how even when that happens, beauty can still be found. They also represent the personal change that I was experiencing at the time. Just like my experience with these photos, everything seemed so dark, I could barely see, but with some adjustments change could be visible.
If only real life could be brightened and altered in Lightroom! Positive change may not be that easy, but if we keep fighting, it can be found. It may even be lurking in the darkness right in front of you.”
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For some reason I find these photos utterly terrifying.
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The old hospital looks like some sort of broken down fortress that once housed mental patients. It is eerie. I think things for mental health consumers have become better over time.
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This looks like something out of a scary movie…Just insert zombies here. Great post!
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I wonder what the ghostly thing was. These photos have so much atmosphere – actually send a chill down my spine…
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Just counting the bricks of this ‘prison’ is painful …
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So sad…
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Looks menacing to me too.
But good photos, for sure.
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Great post and credit to the photographer for taking these in the dark. Very eerie and full of atmosphere.
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Lightroom is great like that. Perspective is hard to gain in dark times. It sounds like you are in a better place than you were then. Thank you for sharing these – I find them to be quite lovely.
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Reblogged this on Observations on Bipolar Disorder and commented:
I like this photo. It reminded me how much we as society have changed in our approach to dealing with (i.e. where we put) the mentally ill over the last hundred years since the advancement of modern drugs.
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