Face Of The Day

For his book Fifty Shrinks, photographer and psychiatrist Sebastian Zimmermann captured New York therapists in their offices:

The seedling ideas for the project began to take root as Zimmermann built his own practice in Upper West Side Manhattan, where he observed within himself a sense of remoteness from the outside world. While his patients shared with him intimate portions of themselves, the role of psychiatrist necessitated a detached and discrete existence.

For Zimmermann, the remedy for the psychiatrist’s exile was the photographer’s inquiry. As soon as he began capturing the offices of his friends and peers, word spread and his own position within the city’s network of mental health professionals opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed. For the artist, his psychiatric training lent itself to portraiture in the sense that both required careful attention to the barely perceptible psychological rhythms of his fellows. Where therapists mostly cast their gaze outwards, here they become the vulnerable objects of our own, their evanescent anxieties and idiosyncrasies unveiled for a single precious instant.

See more from the series here.