I make my living taking pictures of people doing random things. Photography is my savior.

I'm an artist, a writer, a suicide prevention advocate, an "agitator" for social justice.

Since 2009, I have been making photographs of my mentally ill, substance-abusing mother.

A handful of images to sum up the last four years of my life, four years spent cycling 40,000kms around the world for mental health.

In March 2011 when my mother was diagnosed with cancer I clung on to my camera as if it were an anchor, a lifebelt, a witness. The world as I had known it lurched before me.

"I was a little kid when I started neatly lining up my shoes. It was the finishing touch on a super-tidy room that I guess I thought would help hold everything together. "

"It wasn’t just the war. It wasn’t just Iraq. That was just the last straw that broke the camel’s back for everything to hit me at once."

"Why are you attending university?" should seem like a simple question, but not at all.

"The first six years after the war I tried to forget the war and move on with my life...writing poetry gives me clarity of thought and daily purpose."

"I feel like I’ve been living the life of a ghost.  Groundless, rootless, floating from above, watching everyone else’s life unfold before me."

"I’ve always had ups and downs. And creativity came with it, like a gift wrapped in gold in exchange for my grief."

"I have tried leaving photography but it doesn’t leave me. But in the process of pursuing this life, I have lost many others."