NOTHING IS EVER FOREVER…BEING CAMERA SHY CAN BE THAT WAY TOO ;)

It has taken a lockdown pandemic and a crazy urge/need to photograph to pulverise decades of camera shyness… well sort of.

The concept behind my self-portrait session goes somewhat deeper.  The need to know who me was had become too strong.

It was time to finally dare show myself myself. To bring the person in the mirror into the room.

These portraits of myself are rare; I do not #existinphotos. So many chapters of my life have been lived behind the lens invisible to the rest of the world.

Shying away, constantly, from having my photograph taken by simply being the one taking the images .

The fear of who I might see in these images has, to be honest, followed me around since my teens.

At 50, this had to change. Time to take the bull by the horns.

Rising quietly to this self induced challenge, I faced the woman in the mirror. Took a long hard look at her, turned a deaf ear to her pretexts and placed her firmly in front of my lens.

The strangest thing happened: I laughed and felt strangely alive. Looking at me, not a reflection in the mirror, brought clarity.

I was seeing me from the outside looking in and not just from the inside looking out.

Finally, I saw my “flaws”, all the wee things I had been loathed to face, for exactly what they are: small and harmless but yet an huge part of “me”. This concoction of features, mimics, scars, freckles are mine, part of my identity and not in any way or form my enemies… They subtly layer-up to create my outer-self.

Incredibly, all it took was a couple of sweater-smile self-portraits to blow away years of anguish; to cut the tie to a misconceived and oh so limiting fear.

All I need to do now, move forward into life creating far better illustrated chapters…