When you feel like a fraud: Self Portrait

-potential T/W ahead -

I remember getting up one Christmas - I would've been thirteen, and I opened up my presents at my Dad's place, and here was this super cute kodak camera. It was just 2 megapixels and that at the time was super amazing. I had a small 256mb memory card which housed the grand total of 20 photos at a time. What a time to be alive!

And for the next year, I took photos that were important to me. I looked at composition, I looked for light. I took that camera to school, to trips, to camping. I fell in love remembering the little things.

That was 14 years ago, and I look back at the time, and I look back over the last 12 months in particular, and I start to wonder how much of my life has changed since receiving that first little camera.

To be honest, life has been pretty shit for a lot of it, and I'm not going to lie - I've been through a fucking lot.   I've suffered from depression and anxiety. I've had eating disorders. I've had PTSD. I've gone through two massively abusive relationships.  I've been assaulted.  It hasn't been an easy and pretty journey.

So when a question was asked not that long ago in a boot camp - where do we see ourselves as an artist, I looked against the images I've produced for clients in the past 12 months.  There are many gorgeous ladies in these fabulous princess dresses. There are smiles and laughter - and I don't relate to any of them.   I don't see myself in any of the pictures. I created a life within them that I wish I had, and I finally thought that enough was enough.

My project was to do a self-portrait suite, representing my headspace for this month.  These were the results thus far.