Earlier this year I started taking self-portraits. What started with vanity shots in front of the mirror has turned into my own story of rediscovery.
Hello, body. Is this really you?
Where did all that grey hair come from? The wrinkles, the tired eyes?
Changing from filtered snapshots through my phone to the enquiring eye of a full-frame camera was confronting.
Is this really me? I realised how little I had been really seeing of myself for a long time.
And there it was. The judging.
Why is it that we are always the hardest on ourselves?
Why is it so much easier to comfort a friend, to compliment and cheer on someone else when they move in front of the camera?
With every shutter release my shoulders soften now and I can extend more and more kindness to my own body.
I appreciate it as it is. Without labelling its parts, and taking it in as a canvas, as a whole.
How can I act less in front of the camera and embody more of what makes me?
These self-portraits are for me to remember what I am now.
But they are also an invitation to YOU.
An invitation to see yourself.
With kind eyes.
See your magnificent beauty.
Unapologetic. Raw. Real.
Today everything is red.
The streaks on your cheek.
The blood on our hands.
Pleasure.
Pain.
Oh, those fragile beatings
of your heart.
