Emily Gould, Elinor Carucci, Editorial and Art.

Elinor Carucci, from her series Crisis, 2001

And the others, too, are amazingly similar to Carucci’s own work. When I pulled them into Bridge, I had trouble distinguishing them. The intimacy and vulnerability of Carucci’s self-portraits cross over well here; Gould was left with panic attacks and crippling self doubt after the public scrutiny she endured.

photograph by Elinor Carucci for The New York Times

Elinor Carucci, from her series Closer, 2000

Text from Carucci’s artist statement for her series Crisis:

“It was photography that allowed me to be able to step away, to see what
was going on. The fact that Eran let me take those pictures, in the
middle of these difficult situations, in a way, reconnected me to him.
I was surprised by the fact that I was taking pictures, that I needed
so much to make pictures, that I was pushing my own limits, I wanted to
do this. I wanted to look at us. I wanted to be able to see the beauty
in those painful moments, to create, to feel myself and who I am
because everything else felt like total chaos and out of control.”

Text from Gould’s article, Exposed:

“I started having panic attacks — breathless bouts of terror that left
me feeling queasy, drained and hopeless — every day. I didn’t leave my
apartment unless I absolutely had to, and because I had the option of
working from home, I rarely had to. But while my actual participation
in life shrank down to a bare minimum, I still responded to hundreds of
e-mail messages and kept up a stream of instant-messenger conversations
while I wrote. Depending on how you looked at it, I either had no life
and I barely talked to anyone, or I spoke to thousands of people
constantly.”

photograph by Elinor Carucci for The New York Times

Elinor Carucci, from her series Closer, 2000

Good call, Kathy Ryan. I wonder if Carucci finds it cathartic to photograph another person’s pain the same way she photographs her own.

One more example, after the jump.

ouch.