17/4/21

I fell into a bit of a picture taking funk last year, but was then inspired by an episode of Elizabeth Gilbert’s old podcast ‘Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert’ (ep.208 if you want to know), where she spoke to a woman who didn’t feel able to call herself a poet. I can 100% relate as I’ve never felt comfortable with saying that I’m a photographer, because you know, real photographers have their work published, and therefor I don’t qualify (I’m not so hung up about that now, as I don’t really care about it as a label anymore; if someone asks I say I’m a photographer, and then the conversation just moves on). Anyway, Gilbert suggested a couple of ideas to the poet (see - I call her that!), one of which was that she should embark on a secret year-long project, which she wasn’t to show anyone until it was finished. The whole point was to create, without any input from anyone else, for your own pleasure, and away from any validation that social media gives you. I immediately knew what my secret project should be. A year’s worth of self portraits, using the self-timer on the camera, and only having three goes to get it ‘right’. I’ve said this so many times, but as I’m always behind the camera there are hardly any photos of me, so it really was a no-brainer. In the end I missed two days, as I had completely forgotten to take a pic on those days, but you know, whatever. I’m going to make a book of it, for myself, so there’s also a physical record of me between 16/4/21 and 16/4/22, and I’m naming it ‘Me me me’.

The picture above is from day 2, on what looks like a nice sunny day, in the garden, with me reading the paper. There’s a LOT of pictures of me reading, which feels good to see.

22/4/21
I didn’t use a tripod, apart from one pic I think, so I had to make use of the floor, shelves, tables - basically any flat surface I could find. I love this picture. That light was just a frickin’ gift!

30/4/21

Me and O reading our books next to each other before his bedtime. Most of the pictures are from home and my everyday life. I very rarely remembered to take a self portrait when I was out and about. A good creative challenge if there ever was one.

2/5/21

A lot of the time I’d forget to take a picture until I was about to go to bed (and a few times I’d remember with a jolt, as I was about to fall asleep).

5/5/21

This makes me laugh. My New Year’s resolution last year was to be able to do three pull ups. I totally failed. A few months before the end of the year my elbow joints gave out, so I couldn’t do any weights for a while, let alone pull ups exercises. Needless to say, I gave up, and this year I realised that New Year’s resolutions are silly, and that I naturally do lots of new things in a year anyway. I also now know that I’ll never be able to do a pull up, and I’m fine with that.

27/5/21

I think this was my only tripod shot. And here I am, getting a blog post together.

10/6/21

I have no shame. Yep. that’s me on the loo.

14/6/21

It’s funny to see how my clothes change as the seasons do too. Buddy is in a lot of the shots. I’m sure he’s looking at me here thinking “She’s so… weird.”

25/7/21

Well, I am. A bit.

2/8/21

But you love me Buddy, and newsflash, we’re all weird. Even you, my furry friend.

7/8/21

And yeah, even away, in our friends’ house, I had to get my weird on. Sometimes I’d do a last millisecond pose, just to change things up.

10/8/21

This ones also makes me laugh. I’ll call it ‘Life at the edge of the sun’.

27/8/21

In the house in the Cotswolds. I like the tones in this one.

14/9/21

So strange to see this room when it was white. I have no idea why we left it so long before we changed the colour in there. It looks so boring and cold compared to how it is now. And yes, Buddy is allowed on the table, because who’s to say he wouldn’t be up there when we’re not in anyway? I draw the line if he’s just been to the loo, but going by my logic, he probably goes up there when he has, when we’re not in - ha!

21/9/21

Me and the moon. Howling at it? Turning into a werewolf? Joking aside, it was a stunning full moon.

I’ll post more of these soon. Hey - that rhymes! Noice.