The Living Death

• Prize
  Gold in Portraiture/Self-Portrait
• Photographer
  Whitney Dafoe, United States
• Studio
  Whitney Dafoe

I have had a chronic illness called ME/CFS for 17 years. It has gradually become more and more severe. In 2010 I became housebound and in 2013 I became bedridden. I have been working on this project since 2010.

It started because I could no longer make the kinds of photographs I was inspired to make. But in 2010, I realized that my story of living with such a severe chronic illness for which there was no cure was the exact kind of story I would love to photograph if I was healthy, and that I could photograph myself. I tried to make honest depictions of my every day experience.