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Tara Wray, author of our photography interview series Lady Shooters, just released a new photo book calledĀ Too Tired for SunshineĀ (Yoffy Press). The book explores depression through photos representing lifeās daily moments in a way that is both whimsical and dark. Wray utilizes absurdism and dark humor to portray the realities of mental illness.
Wray is a photographer, writer and filmmaker living in rural Vermont. She is from Kansas but considers Vermont, where she shot most of the book, to be her adopted home. The images were mostly taken between 2011 and present day.Ā
Although she has a background in documentary film, in 2008, Wray turned her attention to still photography. She has self-published two other photobooks,Ā Each One Wonderful and Come Again When You Canāt Stay So Long.
In the forward to Too Tired For Sunshine, novelist Aimee Bender writes, āThereās plenty of comedy to find in hereāa pizza-faced child, a deer butt between restrooms, some kind of blurry eager goat. And thereās also loneliness and abandon: the solitary oven under trees is both funny and then so sadā¦ These imagesāof animals dead and alive, the woman with curlers in her hair, another standing in the back of a dump truck wearing a calm smileābecome keen emotional witnesses to this broken world of ours.ā
The images hold a surrealist quality that keeps the viewer engaged to see what will come next. The journey that the book takes the audience through hits high and lows that visually represent mental illness as Wray experienced it.
On her Kickstarter for the book, Wray writes, āMaking photographs and sharing them allows me to get outside of my head and connect more fully with the world around me. I hope this work will inspire others to discover a sense of unreality in their own world.ā
Order Too Tired for Sunshine here.
All images are from the book Too Tired for Sunshine and were used with permission from Tara Wray.Ā
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