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Capturing Emotion in Photography
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A sincere thank you to Daniel Sundahl, who, on Thursday, November 12, 2015, was the guest speaker at our Images Alberta Camera Club evening meeting,
Daniel is a paramedic and a fire fighter and a photographer. He shared images from his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) series, and as he explained the background behind each image many in the audience were crying. In this series, Daniel recreates scenes that have deeply touched him as a paramedic and fire fighter and have touched other emergency first responders. In the image to the right, the scene represents his colleague who had just lost of one of his patients. In some of his recent images, he breaks the viewer's heart by adding a spiritual figure; e.g., a mother who is looking over her injured child; a little girl who has passed away and is still holding her teddy bear; angel wings wrapped around a first responder. Daniel explained how very important and therapeutic it was for him to do this work, not only for himself but for all the other emergency first responders. There are so many first responders who undergo incredible high stress each and every day and sometimes it is simply too much, resulting in suicidal thoughts for some and suicide as the choice made by others. Daniel's use of photography is a strategy that helps him deal with trauma and to 'let go' of the traumatic and tragic moments. His goal is to keep sharing his photographs so that other people can also deal more effectively with PTSD. Images and background prose to his images can be found on Daniel's Facebook page and on his website. Daniel has also recently published a book, Portraits of an Emergency, and Daniel says that "a portion of the proceeds from this book will be used to create a scholarship fund to help send people to the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation's annual congress." |
© Daniel Sundahl
Daniel's work is nationally and internationally acclaimed. On November 12, 2015 the CBC published an article about Daniel, his philosophy and his work.
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