Mental health and the creative mind – a real story with Shaun Hall & Victoria Louise

Welcome back all, a few weeks ago I brought you a double-length special with Stephen at Kosmo. For this week I’m bringing you something really different and totally understand if it’s not for you. For one week, I’ve put together a double-length special focusing on mental health with a couple of photographers. These are blunt, raw, true stories about real-life here as they talk about Mental Health and its effects.

I am very proud to present my friends Shaun Hall and Victoria Louise who have agreed to bring you honesty. When around us there is the false world of perfection and Instagram, but behind this are people with problems. It’s about time we talked about this and stopped pretending we live these amazing lives and everything is a photo.

Shaun is more of a landscape and nature photographer, but loves all genres to be honest and is currently living off the Yorkshire Coast. Victoria lives in the small town of Gainsborough with her family and works in the wedding and portrait world of photography. They will both tell you about their lives, how mental health has affected it, what part photography has played.

In this one we discuss:

training your mind
traumas
addiction
suicide
treatment
recovery
funding
support mechanisms
coping under COVID

*** Please remember we are not medically trained and not offering professional advice, we are here as fellow humans with issues. ***

Support

We have put together a few links as resources for anyone struggling. Some of these are local to Victoria & Shaun.

Bearded Fisherman – https://www.facebook.com/beardedfishermencharity/

Be the Difference – http://www.gainsboroughwishes.co.uk/be-the-difference/4594748698

NHS – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-health-helplines/

Links

Here you can find links to Shaun & Victoria’s work as well as our group. Please remember the group I created is for anyone in the photography world – we don’t care if you are a novice, expert, model, publisher or something else. It’s a safe space to relax and find support, some people post images, some people write – there are no rules.

Shaun Hall – https://www.shaunrhallphotography.com/

Shaun (Instagram) – https://www.instagram.com/shaunhallphotography/

Victoria Louise – https://www.nocternalartistphoto.co.uk/

Victoria (Instagram) – https://www.instagram.com/nocternalartist/

Photographers Therapy group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/photographerstheraphy/

Quotes

After listening to the show and the guests, you can take a summary of their words from these quotes:

“managing mental health is like a full-time job” – Victoria

“people say you have a choice with this life, they don’t understand mental health or addiction” – Shaun