This is an episode in my Limited mobility | Unlimited stories series as well as my entry for the @photogames self-portrait challenge.
After I was forced to sit on the couch for months, I started to doubt myself. You have to understand: according to my doctor there was no way to tell how long I would need to be reasonably able to walk again. "Certainly not within a month, maybe within a year once you have used your orthopedic shoes for a while", she said.
I had always been a spontaneous photographer, when in the mood, I did some shooting, when not, I didn't. Walking around my beloved city used to be a big part of that process. Photography was my meditation. "But what if I never walk with my camera again?", I thought. "A photographer who doesn't take pictures is not a photographer. Who am I, if not a photographer?"
Experiments without a camera
I started doing experiments with 'image making' that I could literally do from the couch. Two examples:
- Take screenshots within Google Street View. You'd be surprised how many amazing compositions you can find if you are patient. I created images. But is that photography?
- Using an app that 'geometrified' everything I pointed my iPhone at and made a picture of. I created thousands of images that way since I'm a huge fan of geometry. But is that photography?
After a while I got bored with it. It didn't make me feel like a photographer.
Breaking through
I slowly started to get back to being involved within the collective of photographers and illustrators I am a member of. We started a project about 'the invisible city', every member would take a year to create a project guided by the head editor of one of the biggest newspapers in the Netherlands.
I couldn't let that chance slide.
In the back of my mind I had a lingering idea: I wanted to take portraits of 30 women turning 30 in 2017. It would be my own 30th birthday that year, and I wanted to literally see how other women lived, looked like, whether they too had experienced unexpected life changes like me.
I will later write a separate blog about this project, but to make a long story short: a fellow photographer helped me get over my doubts ('I can't do this! How will I physically manage to meet with 30 women?') and suggested: "If you can't use your body, if you can't walk, if you can't plan the days you can get of your couch... Why not ask those women to come to you?"
And so I did. I invited 30 women I didn't know through Facebook and a local newspaper, and they all came to my house. I had never done portraits before, but I shot 30 portraits while having intense conversations with 30 individual women on my couch, over the course of six months.
Even though the light in my living room was crappy, I didn't own a portrait lens, and I felt utterly unprepared for such a big project: I was a photographer again.
Pointing the camera at myself
During that year I took a quick selfie on 'the couch' after one of the women left. I wanted to preserve what I looked like at 30 too. It's the portrait I use as my Steemit avatar.
But after that I haven't done many self-portraits. I've gained weight from not walking as much as I did. I've grown insecure since a lot of my self-worth comes from what I achieve as a photographer. My process of 'walking with less pain' went so slow I sometimes forgot I could take more steps than a year before.
BUT! I do. I do take more steps than a year ago. I did do a very personal and valuable photo project that got huge exposure. I am still worth a glare in the lens of my camera.
I'm growing, and it is often uncomfortable, but despite of everything, I still am a photographer.
Portrait of a photographer
I'm a huge fan of Vivian Mayer style selfies. Reflected in windows, in mirrors, a bit concealed, not too close-up, self-explorative. But when I woke up this morning I knew I needed to not walk today. So I had to do something at home.
I've been wanting to make a portrait GIF for a while now, to use as a footer on my Steemit blogs. So instead of going outside I decided to finally execute it for the @photogames entry. I had to find an empty wall at home (ehmmm), look for the best light at that hour (yay, windows!), set up a tripod (what's all that sand doing in the 'legs' of my tripod?), and, the hardest part... keep my head perfectly still!
(Spoiler alert: I didn't succeed. For some reason I kept moving my head while opening my eyes.)
[The sequence I used for my self-portrait gif. The last piece of sort-of empty wall in my home.]
[The final and very imperfect GIF. Oh well. Life is imperfect too.]
MORE IN THE SERIES LIMITED MOBILITY | UNLIMITED STORIES:
- Limited mobility | Unlimited stories: I took this picture only moments before I would permanently damage my foot
- Limited mobility | Unlimited stories: How far do you go?
All photography on steemit.com/@soyrosa is created and edited by me, Rosanne Dubbeld, 2005-2018. Contact me if you want to discuss licensing or collaborations on creative projects :-)
Return from Limited mobility | Unlimited stories: am I still a photographer? to Rosanne's Web3 Blog
