Tara Wray uses photographs from her new book to let others know that it’s OK to grapple with mental illness.
“There were moments that I felt alone and isolated in a dark place, and I wondered if I would see the other side of it,” she tells NPR. “Photography has given me those moments back … I can now see them in a different light.”
The photographs Wray selected for Too Tired for Sunshine evoke a loneliness that resonates as familiar: A dog looking through a misty car window. An empty table in a deli with a view of a . A water slide askew on the shore of a frozen lake.
Wray — a Vermont-based photo editor of the literary journal Hobart who has contributed to Vice, Bust and HuffPost — found the process of making photographs cathartic in itself.
“The act of sharing a photo — of being seen and understood by others — probably matters more than I would like to admit,” she says.
Response to the book prompted her to launch an Instagram account, @TooTiredProject, “to help those struggling with depression by offering a place for collective creative expression,” and asked people to tag their images #TooTiredProject.
Sunshine as a metaphor for life sounds great!