Tyrone ‘Don't Smile’ embarked on a journey to encapsulate the
essence of childhood, a visual narrative story told by individual portraits of
children
that stems from many levels of his own personal experience of childhood loss.
The loss was weeks and months spent alone and in isolation in hospitals due to
illness. The children I photographed seamlessly melded with the echoes of
my own childhood past of loneliness and anxiety.
Exploring loneliness that can cast a long darkness over a child's world, isolation
is as diverse as the children themselves.
Various
research projects and studies have supported the advancement of photographic
storytelling in the landscape
of a lonely child's world.