The Reality Of Hidden Disabilities

Edge of Humanity Magazine

3 hours ago

Photographer Anthony Porter is an Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Seeing the Unseen’. To see Anthony’s body of work, click on any photograph.

In 2021, I was paralysed by Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I spent months unable to move, dependent on machines and other people for everything. I recovered — enough to walk, enough to function, enough that strangers see nothing wrong when they look at me. That invisibility is the subject of this work.

An estimated 80% of disabilities in the UK are hidden. The wheelchair — the image the world reaches for when it thinks about disability — represents only a fraction of the reality. From personal experience as a disabled photographer, Seeing the Unseen explores the tension between visibility and assumption, and the social pressures faced by people whose conditions leave no obvious physical trace.

The project is a constructed documentary series made in collaboration with people living with hidden conditions — chronic illness, neurological damage, mental illness, and pain that leaves no visible mark. Using portraiture, metaphor, and visual construction, the work makes tangible what daily life conceals, translating internal experience into visual form.

It does not ask for sympathy. It asks for attention.

Anthony Porter was born in Glasgow on 27 April 1969 into a working-class family of Irish parents. The youngest of seven children, with two brothers and four sisters, his early life was shaped by strong family and community connections that continue to influence his photographic practice.

Before pursuing photography professionally, Porter worked as a nurse within the NHS Scotland. In August 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he contracted Guillain–Barré syndrome. This rare neurological condition left him critically ill, paralysed from the neck down, and dependent on life support for several weeks. Following a year in the hospital, he had to relearn how to walk and speak. The illness left him with residual disabilities, ultimately ending his nursing career and leading to his registration as disabled.

These experiences form the foundation of Seeing the Unseen, a constructed documentary series exploring the realities of hidden disability and public perception. The work aims to encourage empathy and challenge assumptions surrounding disability, highlighting that disability is not always outwardly visible. Throughout the project, he reflects on the judgement and scrutiny he experienced in everyday situations, including public reactions to his use of disabled parking spaces and accessibility provisions.

Photography had long been a personal passion throughout his nursing career, and following his recovery, he returned to education, graduating with a First in BA (Hons) in Professional Photography at Edinburgh. After his first exhibition in Edinburgh, he has exhibited his work in Berlin and London, where he was a finalist in the prestigious Association of Photographers (AOP) Awards, at which he walked away with the silver award for his work ‘Seeing the Unseen.’ His practice combines documentary storytelling with constructed imagery to examine identity, vulnerability, and social understanding through a deeply personal lens.

All images and text © Anthony Porter