Hello everyone,

I'd like to share a project that I'm about to start,

I'm photographing the mentally ill in their homes, starting with myself. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder a year ago, and have been looking for ways to shed light on my illness as well as the illnesses of others. My goal is to show that mental illness is invisible as well as to treat the relationship that exists between mental illness and environment. I would like to de-stigmatize mental illness with my photographs by showing that the people who live with disorders can and do lead normal lives.

Once this project is done, I intend to make very large prints of my photographs and include text written by my subjects and have this work exhibited in a gallery, museum, or book.

I'm still struggling to come up with a name for this project. I'm currently toying with the idea of using "Exposing mental illness: a photographic study of mental illness and environment"

If you have any questions or comments about the project, or live in the tri-state area and would like to be part of it, don't hesitate to email me at mike@mikedote.com

Mike