My First Self Portrait
2am, Friday night. Exhausted, but inspired. Bags under my eyes and feeling the nerves, I decided to try taking a self portrait for the first time. I don’t know a thing about self portraiture. I don’t even know if this is a “good photo”, but what I do know, is that this is me at my most vulnerable that I’ve been with myself in a photo, and that’s why I like it. The second is me laughing because I felt uncomfortable, but I was loving the process.
I’ve literally never taken a self portrait before, because I was always too uncomfortable, too insecure, too self conscious, and just never liked who I saw looking back at me. Whether it was in a photo, or in a mirror. I still felt all of those feelings, but for the first time, I faced them head on, looked myself in the eye, and did it anyway. Bags and all…because it’s me.
In life, underneath the insecurities, beyond our comfort zone, and past the fears and limiting beliefs, is who we want to be, who we’re meant to be. We just have to break the barrier that gets in our way. And when looking at this photo of myself, for the first time, I feel like I know the person who’s looking back.
If you’ve been curious about self portraiture and have never taken one before, I highly encourage giving it a shot. I gained so much from this one simple practice this night, photography wise, and in terms of my own image of how I portray myself. We’re so worried about things being perfectly, especially nowadays online, that we forget to leave in the authentic part. And funny enough, that authentic part, is where the emotion lies. Not when the post is perfectly polished. This exercise of being on the other side of the camera for once, also gave me even more empathy for my clients and how they might be feeling showing up to a shoot.
Feel free to let go, take and accept yourself as you are, and give it a try. You never know what might come out of it. I’d also like to thank Shaun Tucker for the inspiration for this late night portrait endeavor, where he says if you’d like to take portraits of others, you should put yourself in their shoes, and get in front of a camera yourself to feel what they feel. It couldn’t be any more true.
