Rain without an umbrella aims to document some of the men who have suffered with suicidal thoughts or attempted to commit suicide themselves through portraiture. All of the subjects came forward for the project voluntarily with the intent on removing the stigma of silence around male suicide and letting viewers know that it is an issue which can affect anyone regardless of age. All subjects were given the option to remain anonymous for this project, none chose to do so as their unanimous aim was to be as upfront and honest about the topic. The title for this project is derived from one of the subjects descriptions of how they felt when suicidal.

 

In the UK men are 75% more likely to commit suicide than women, in 1981 2,468 women took their own lives, by 2017 it had almost halved to 1,439. The same statistic for men in 1981 is 4,134 rising to 4,382 by 2017 (Office of National Statistics, 2018) where it is estimated that for every suicide committed there are at least 20 attempted suicides (World Health Organisation, 2018). In 1981 men were only 1.9 timesmore likely to commit suicide, now they are 3.5 times more likely. Although the most at-risk age group for suicide is 45-49 with 24.8 deaths per 100,000, however, in 2017 1,588 young people under the age of 35 committed suicide (Papyrus, 2018) where men aged 15-34 made up 1,209 of those.