Self-Portrait

Since 2009, I’ve been taking photos of myself for myself. That’s how I started in the industry in which I now work. It was a pure intention: to see the different sides of myself in an attempt to capture all human emotions.

The last 3 years on my birthday I’ve started a new tradition: writing a self portrait. I capture myself in the moment describing who I am and what I’m up to with my life.

Throughout my life, I’ve tended to not have a great memory. I used to say I remember nearly nothing before I was 14 years old, which, coincidentally, is around the time I started working with acrylic paint and taking photos of my self. Photos help me remember what I looked like, not just on the visible surface, but also with what I was dealing with and viewing on the inside.

When I take an intentional self-portrait, it captures both my mood over the last few weeks, but also the moment in which is was taken.

I frequently look back to when I shot an image from my neck to my chest in high school. I used ink and made little xs down my neck, then painted a paper heart. I was an emo child at that time, but that image describes me: a thin paper heart with blacked ink, white skin, rough around the edges. That’s me, from then at least.

My most recent self-portrait is a silhouette dancing against the light of the pool at night. I’d been toying with ways to use the light of the pool at night and through some trial and error found the best way with my partner Bryan. I shot this image because I was working on…