Photography for me: Personal, Emotional, Therapeutic… by Douglas Ljungkvist

Following text and photos by Douglas Ljungkvist.

 

What’s the perfect profession for someone with Social Anxiety Disorder and a touch of ADD? To be a photographer, of course! Social anxiety has long been my dark personal secret that has caused me much shame and anguish. I remember when those TV commercials for the medication “Paxil” first came out describing social anxiety symptoms. I used to think; that’s exactly how I feel. Speaking about it or sharing it with someone, including my wife at the time, did not feel like an option for me. We live in a world where “different” is not strived for or celebrated. I can relate to something that Van Morrison recently said in a rare CBS interview “being an introvert in an extroverted world is like walking a tightrope”.

Here is why I decided to share this about myself and how it relates to my photography. A couple of years ago a friend and coworker of mine committed suicide. This hit me really hard especially since he was the last person I expected to take his own life. To the outside world he had a great career, a family, his youth, he was charming, and appreciated the finer things in life. His death prompted me to do a lot of research on suicide and I was shocked to learn that over 32,000 American’s commit suicide every year (CDC) and globally more people die from suicides than war and violence combined (WHO). Those statistics are frightening!

What I find even more disturbing is that there is no public debate about suicide or urgency to do anything proactive about this social problem. If we went to the same lengths as to avoid deaths by car accidents or cigarette smoking the numbers could be very different. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among the 10-24 age groups (CDC) in the US. Unless you have attempted suicide chances are you will never be exposed to any of the numerous organizations in the US that are involved with mental health or suicide prevention. I get the impression that the medical establishment in the US is fear stricken with the threat of personal liability lawsuits. God forbid someone should mention the word suicide and get sued by a parent or loved one. There is also a fear in the media and medical community of starting suicide pandemic’s, even though this has never happened, except for a handful of copycat suicides in Japan. I think the silence is killing many more. With only 1 in 25 suicide attempts resulting in death there are a lot of cries for help and people that could be saved. 90% of adults who attempt suicide suffer from a mental illness or substance abuse (CDC). Thousands of bi-polar disorder and depression sufferers alone could possibly be diagnosed, treated, and live a healthy life through therapy, support, and medication. With the lack of a national health care plan, as opposed to Canada, the US has millions of people without medical insurance. Even if one qualifies for subsidized state insurance chances are great that it doesn’t cover mental health. No social problems ever go away by ignoring them, whether it is suicide, eating disorders, or teen pregnancy.

The general silence and lack of support for suicide attempt survivors led me to want to do something to start a public debate and help remove the stigma and shame associated with suicide. So I decided to start a new photography project that would focus on Suicide Attempt Survivors that have managed to turn their lives around and are happy that their attempt(s) failed. But as I was researching and preparing to start the project something was eating at me. Here I am asking people that have attempted suicide to stand up and be counted, show their faces and tell their stories, while I was not willing to do the same about my social anxiety. I had only shared my personal struggle with less than a handful of people over the years. So I felt like a hypocrite! Especially compared to these brave suicide attempt survivors. Maybe it’s not that big a deal for people to learn that I have social anxiety disorder, but when you live with it, it’s a huge deal. Before I turned to photography full time, I had a successful career as a Sales & Marketing executive in the travel industry. Strangely enough, public speaking was one of my strengths. I think adaptability is a common trait for people with social anxiety disorder, including myself. In fact, there are numerous famous people in acting, entertainment, and sports that suffer from social anxiety. One of my greatest fears was that my employer would find out about my social anxiety disorder and put me in a dark room with no windows for the rest of my career.

Now how does this relate to my photography? When I say that photography is all about self expression for me, I really mean it! I consider myself a thinker, an observer, and I love the solitary pursuit of photography. My personal work is more about feelings and moods rather than decisive moments. It’s confessional and therapeutic, too. Control is an important aspect for someone with social anxiety. Many photographers wait for something to happen in the frame. I usually wait for people to leave the frame. Metaphorically I often replace people with static and controllable objects or include people as blurred foreground objects. My series of discarded items is a good example of that. I would call my personal photography vernacular urban landscape photography.

When I shoot personal work my process is completely intuitive. I don’t know what I will photograph until I see it and even then I’m not always sure why it appeals to me. There are often emotional sub texts to my work that include feelings of familiarity, alienation, eeriness, or the abstract. I have a visual appreciation for certain aesthetics including strong lines, texture, and late afternoon light. I would describe my photographic voice as urban, graphic, vernacular, and quiet. Most beauty in my eyes is utilitarian and shows signs of usage and scars of history. I call it “Beautiful Ugliness”. A good example of what I mean is from a recent trip to Barcelona. There is so much great architecture there but I don’t really enjoy Gaudi’s work all that much. My favorite place was this little space that was a cross between a square and an alley. The only tree there had been chopped down and only a small stump remained. The lines, overall graphicness, texture, and colors, made this space just perfect and visually my favorite place in Barcelona. It wasn’t until later that I understood what it was that emotionally connected me with that place. There was something sad but beautiful about it. It felt like it had been abandoned, neglected, and was not important. These are feelings of familiarity from my childhood which is a reoccurring theme in my personal work.

Social anxiety symptoms and severity vary from person to person. I went from being someone who thrived in large groups in my teens and twenties, to more comfortable in one-on-one situations. I don’t like to draw attention to myself or be the center of attention, even if it’s positive, except by letting my photography speak for me. This might also have something to do with growing up in Sweden which is a more conformed society where it is considered rude to be publicly opinionated or to self promote. I think Swedish design concepts are also deeply rooted in my sense of aesthetics and comes out in my photography. Someone with social anxiety tends to worry excessively about upcoming social activities, but at least in my case, is usually fine once in the moment. But fear of embarrassment and analyzing how people perceive you is never far away. Thanks to medication these affects are now minimized and allow me to live a functional and satisfying life. Thanks to therapy I have accepted that I don’t have social anxiety disorder because I am a bad person or through any fault of my own but rather due to a genetic and neurological predisposition that I have no control over. Erica was the first person I told about my social anxiety a couple of years ago. She has been incredibly supportive and understanding of my needs, who I am, and my change in careers. We’re getting married this summer.

All my work is untitled as I want the viewer to feel what it means to them or how it feels to walk in my shoes. I get much of my inspiration from movies, especially from the 40’s and 70’s. I love walking around the city and finding quiet scenes that sometimes feel like walking on to a movie set. There are no people or cars there. It can give you a surreal post-apocalyptic feeling. These scenes sometimes remind me of the illustrated backdrops often used in 40’s movies. My color palette and appreciation for cars comes from the 70’s. It’s almost the only visual memories left from that era. In general I like the contrast of the elegance of the 40’s vs. the wonderful tackiness of the 70’s.

Social anxiety has not stopped me from photographing people, on the contrary. I have photographed many weddings, family portraits, events, worked with models, and photographed corporate headshots. Photography allowed me to meet a female resident of a Flushing Ave public housing project who told me about living there for thirty years; the violence, the poverty, and what a tough life it has been for her. Or the retired truck driver from Middletown, OH who told me about his town and how it used to be a thriving place to live and raise a family. But given the choice, you will probably find me photographing in a quiet urban or industrial area over photographing celebrity portraits on large scale commercial shoots.

I pride myself in being a self educated photographer. Since an early age I have preferred personal exploration, trial and error, and hands on experience, over the class room environment. I also have more than 25 feet of photography books that I’ve read and learned from and enjoy as part of my always growing collection. I am less interested in contemporary photography and relate more to the 1970’s color photographers like Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. I very much enjoy the work of Italian architectural and urban landscape photographer Gabriele Basilico, too.

In an era of specialization and conceptualization I will continue to go my own way and not worry about the latest visual trends. I know my personal work is not trendy and that’s just fine with me. Shoot what you know; shoot what you love, right!? Sometimes I consider my personal work more like landscape paintings, except that my landscape is urban and my camera and lenses are my tools. The only regret I have is that I didn’t discover photography earlier in my life when I was looking for meaning and purpose. But now that I have fallen in love with photography it’s full steam ahead! My new and current long term personal projects are my passions, Middletown USA, Flushing Avenue, Rush Hour, Sub-Cultures, etc. I think my work will lend itself best in book format. To pay the bills I look to establish myself as an editorial travel and architectural photographer. I am able to focus on my clients needs when I shoot commercially vs. personal work. My recent work from Barcelona is a good example of that when comparing the personal work from the more editorial in style. I was there first and foremost to work on diversifying my travel portfolio. The personal work I came back with was a bonus. Travel photography also appeals to me as the scope is not as narrow as with other genres and you really have to be able to photograph everything, city/landscapes, portraits, architecture, food/drink, events, interiors, street photography, etc.

So now I embrace my social anxiety as a part of who I am and a big part of my photographic voice. As I mentioned earlier, I love the solitary pursuit and my intuitive process. Seldom do I feel more energized than when traveling and photographing in a new city for the fist time. I’ve met many strangers and fellow photographers thanks to photography. My ADD allows me to work on multiple projects simultaneously and keeps me from getting bored (needless to say I’m not a fan of the Düsseldorf School of Photography). So you see, photography is the perfect career for me from a process, lifestyle, passion, and self expression perspective.

Regarding the suicide attempt survivor project, I have decided to start it in Canada. I have received tremendous support there from both medical professionals and attempt survivors. The Canadian medical establishment appears much more open minded in applying various approaches in dealing with the issue of suicide as a preventable cause of death. Even more important to me, I’ve only received positive feedback from attempt survivors in Canada that this project is important, does not exploit them, and might have made a difference before their attempt. My personal goals for this project include publication, a traveling exhibition, and lectures with attempt survivors to address key demographics at risk. This project will provide me personally with new and exciting challenges, too. It will be my first true portrait and documentary project, and I plan to include writing by attempt survivors to support the work. I will be applying for Grants and Fellowships to help finance the project. Part of any proceeds from this project will be donated to SPAN USA to help with suicide prevention and support for attempt survivors.

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