Somewhere Between Here and Gone
A photo series documenting mental health struggles from the perspective of a bed.
About the Series
Somewhere Between Here and Gone represents many tensions around mental illness.
When I was 21, I was diagnosed with Depression, and sleep was a contentious part of this. As my doctor prescribed SSRI’s, she also provided some lifestyle tips – one of them being to only spend time in bed doing things you normally do in bed (sex and sleep). Fast forward to today (I’m doing much better, thank you very much), and in my Bachelor of Social Work I’ve learned how fickle sleep can be around mental illness. For many people and illnesses, disturbed sleep – that is, too much or too little – is often an easy to identify symptom. Beyond that, most mental illnesses also affect sleep, causing people to sleep too often or too little. Spending time in bed only doing what you should be doing there in "correct" amounts of time becomes difficult.
When I was addicted to alcohol (actively drinking), I also found solace in bed. It was an easy place to drink, to play, to crash, to recover, but it was also still isolating somehow. During that time, my doctor’s words echoed in my head.
In studying mental health, our images of mental illness are also brimming with tension: photos are of people obviously sad and holding their head, or of perfectly normal people in an attempt to communicate that you never really know who has a mental illness.
Somewhere Between Here and Gone speaks to many tensions alongside the very real experiences of mental illness. I use the bed, a place that is supposed to represent rest, renewal, to show another side of what mental illness can look like.
I am shooting the entire series on a Canon R50 mirrorless camera with a 15-30mm lens. This fish eye lens distorts its view: the closer the lens is to the object, the more obvious the lines become skewed. This felt like an appropriate approach to the subject matter.
I hope viewers question what it means to be well, what it means to experience illness, and to care for both self and others.
And above all else: if viewing these photos is distressing or causes harm – stop. Seek professional mental health support.
-Tim, August 2026
Suicide.
2026.
Sale price coming soon.
Addiction: Alcohol.
2026.
Sale price coming soon.
Grief.
2026.
Sale price coming soon.
About the Photographer
Tim Campbell-Smith (he/him/they/them) is a Bachelor of Social Work student at Wilfrid Laurier University interested in how photographs may be part of, and advance, social justice initiatives. After shifting careers from marketing to social work, his other interest is in mental health; specifically, men's help seeking behaviours and what may impede it. He calls Guelph, Ontario home with his husband, two dogs and family.