This black and white self portrait series puts a real weapon in the
hands of a 'crazy' person, the photographer herself, to portray the
dangerous internal struggle of mental illness meeting with an
external catalyst, a legally-purchased gun. These one to three
second exposures were shot manually and with source lighting in
the photographer's home, where she has successfully hidden her
fight with Bipolar with Psychosis from nearly everyone for years.
This work is not a condemnation of the mentally ill, but rather a
personal exposé intended as a reminder that you never know
what's going on in someone's mind. Viewers may recognize in
themselves the rage, panic, loneliness or confusion that can make
anyone insane for a moment. For the mentally ill and everyone
else, guns turn uncontrollable thought into action. The true
insanity is in allowing that to happen.
Paula Dixon is a fine art portrait photographer who studied at the USC School of Cinema-Television in Los Angeles and the Spéos Institute of Photography in Paris. Her photographs (excluding Hipstamatics) are all shot with manual focus, shutter speed and aperture; they are never spot fixed or Photoshopped. Paula currently resides in Hollywood, CA.
