PHOTOGRAPHY 
Portrait of Dr Jamieson Webster, PhD
“Human beings are endlessly fascinating. I like to explore their presentation, motivation and behavior with my camera, just as much as I try to understand them as a psychiatrist.”
I started photographing Fifty Shrinks in 2002, a decade before the internet teemed with information about mental health practitioners, and patients seeking a therapist often found the process of choosing the right therapist to be daunting even intimidating. While there were photo books on artists in their studios, scientists in their labs, there was nothing on psychotherapists in their offices.
I decided that my goal would be to photograph a whole range of clinicians from various orientations and schools to explore the diversity of the profession. As a psychiatrist and a photographer, I had unique access to photographing colleagues in their consultation rooms and interviewing them together with my journalist wife about their practices.
Being a psychiatrist is a profession that depends on listening and speaking but did not offer an outlet for my visual imagination. Photography became my ideal outlet to express that aspect of myself. When you make a portrait of a person, you try to capture their essence with your camera. This is not unlike psychotherapy, where the therapist tries to overcome the patient's defenses and reveal themselves in their most vulnerable and genuine way.
Portrait of Dr Petra Vospernik, PhD
“My goal was to photograph a whole range of clinician from various orientations and schools. I wanted to show the diversity of the profession. I also hoped to destigmatize being in treatment by showing the therapist as a person.”
Portrait of Dr Mark Epstein, MD
Portrait of Kate Bar-Tur, LCSW
“Photography was the ideal way to express myself. When you make a portrait of a person, you try to capture the essence of that person with your camera, in hopes of understanding their core self, motivation, and identity, which is not unlike the practice of psychotherapy itself.”