seeking truth one photo at a time
Oh truth...
You arrive and sometimes puddle at my feet. You push and pull at me. You sneak in like fog and wait for me to find you when the sun comes up. You confuse me and nudge me and invite me to stretch further than I think I want to.
And the truth is that you feel intangible and hard to find at times. You mingle with another's truth and mirror and hide and sometimes seem to laugh.
But I can't turn away.
I will keep sifting through your layered ways as I take photo after photo trying to find you on my own face.
***
About five years ago, I was talking with a friend and said that I don't tend to take photos of other people at gatherings, but I always take several photos of myself. "I guess I'm a self-portrait photographer" came out of my mouth before I could stop myself. This was before it was "in," before I wrote a book about it, before Instagram, before one easily admitted such things. My friend and I laughed at the time, but I couldn't stop thinking about the incredible, vulnerable truth I had just said aloud.
Taking self-portraits is one vital way I make sense of my everyday. It is how I look for the truth. It is how I check in with myself. It is how I seek confirmation that I am not alone. It is why so many of my Instagram photos are of me, my hands, my feet, my neck, my face, me.
Meeting my own eyes makes me feel deeply seen every time. And when I pair the photos with words pulled right from the guts and make the choice to push publish, I trust that maybe just maybe they will invite you to feel less alone too.
Try it. Take a photo of yourself. I dare you.
self-portrait in real
Reader Comments (6)
What a beautiful post. Looking back at my self portraits I can witness a road map of my emotions and where I currently was in my journey. So I completely understand this.
I love the language you use to describe your relationship with truth. Push and pull and puddle, indeed.
You are so pretty, Liz!
I am one of those moms who tends to be absent from the photos. It's because of the weight shame, of course. Avoiding the truth. I also have a hard time accepting that I'm now over 40. For me, that means grays are appearing in my naturally-dark brunette hair, my skin is changing in ways I'm not crazy about, and there are wrinkles emerging around my eyes. But I like the idea of taking pictures of myself FOR ME. It seems like it would help with self acceptance.
I could have written the comment left here by Darcie. I don't take pictures of myself....I don't like them. I have tried. I have taken them and then I delete them because I just can't stand it. I can take a picture of my shadow or my feet....but that is about it. It took forever before I put a picture in my profile on facebook....and there are a few on instagram......I just don't go back and look at them because they would be gone. I don't like my weight or my hair or the fine lines that are starting to appear. How do you get past that??
you always inspire me.
I used to be like Darcie and Celia. I hated seeing myself in pictures. But on a whim back in 2006, I joined the famed 365 Days project on Flickr. I did two and a half years of daily self portraits. I can't even begin to tell you how much it changed my entire life. I explored the shame. I learned that I am beautiful, even my dark circles and grey hair and my fat. I got used to seeing myself. I learned that I can act good for a photograph on a bad day, which told me that all those cheerful photos you see of others are hiding the same vulnerabilities that I feel. I also met a lot of people through the project, people from all over the world, many of who have become part of my daily life. I've met several of them in real life, too. I even married one of them. But the lesson is that there's nothing wrong with me. Well, at least nothing that isn't also wrong with almost everyone else. I now look back at those 900 self portraits with fondness. Maybe because I'm now able to see myself with the same compassion that I feel when I look at others' self portraits. And maybe that's the real lesson about why self portraits are so compelling.