Starting off another year with the 52Frames weekly challenges.
They do get a bit repetitive, and we start of the year with one of my least favorites: Self Portrait.
I absolutely love being behind the camera, spying the world through my lens; but oh how I hate being front and center, the subject of the image, the entire purpose of the picture.
I had thought of taking a page from a Monty Python sketch ("How Not to Be Seen") and shooting a photo of some trees and calling it "Self Portrait in Camouflage".


I ended up going with a pose that wouldn't show my face. I was inspired by the image of little Carol Ann standing in front of the television in the 1982 film Poltergeist. I figured it would be simple, right?
Wrong.
I tried it with a nightshirt-looking kaftan on and it looked terrible. I blocked almost the whole TV screen.
I tried it without a shirt, and then started to Photoshop my body… and then got mad at myself and stopped and was ready to quit.
Then I just put on the hoodie that I had been wearing that day and said, "Fuck it" and shot it again.
I told myself that I would use one of those shots no matter what.
We don't often see ourselves from behind; it was a bit of a jarring experience to see what other people see when they're in back of me. But I liked the lighting, I liked the image overall, and if it had been anybody else as the model, I would have really loved the shot - so I decided to love this shot, too.
That's what it's like to be me.