Self Portraits
When it comes to judging beauty in others I like to think of myself as something of a connoisseur. There's nothing I like better than to people-watch. To sit, alone, drink in hand in some deserted corner of a cafe watching people meeting with friends, lovers, stopping for a drink before going on with their business. You might say I'm nosy. I like to look at clothes, shoes, hair, eye colour, learning from the bad and storing away the good for future inspiration. You might say I'm judgemental too. I also study demeanor, how a person holds themself, facial expression, do they return a passing smile in the street? I like to try to construct lives and personalities for these strangers around the basis of their looks and comportment. I have no difficulty in deciding which looks I like, which hairstyle pleases me most, who is attractive and who is not - until I am confronted with myself. You might, therefore, even say I'm conceited. We are all, however, permitted a certain degree of navel-gazing, a certain amount of time to spend 'staring, big -Narcissus, into some spring, to set the darkness echoing', and that is precisely what I spent an hour doing yesterday. The portraits are the result.
Why is it that the one person you would think you'd know best is often the one you simply can't get an objective handle on? Why does it even matter?
I have always found it odd that every time I catch sight of myself in a mirror or a photograph a different girl seems to stare back. I like to think that there is a different face for each of the little personalities which together constitute the whole (Suzy Home-maker, Power-dressing-business-bitch, Popular Party Girl, Cynical Social Recluse, the Kid, the Free Spirit) and that the camera is capable of catching each one as it surfaces momentarily.
I keep looking at these photos and trying to figure this girl out, see her through eyes which aren't my own so I can make my mind up about her as I would any other person. It's no good though.
Green Eyes. Greedy for things they can't have.
4 comments:
beautiful eyes.
Why thank you.
"Nosy" is the very definition of a writer Kate. Observation of every tiny detail, making up stories...
So, you're a writer.
And also a wonderful photographer. It's my firm belief that many people inhabit us (and it's not an original theory and I don't consider it neurotic). We shift from one place/voice/space to another - and so our faces change a little as we do.
This is a lovely blog. Hope you don't mind - I've added you to my blogroll.
I consider it a compliment to be added to your blogroll - I hope you don't mind but I added you to mine a while ago. I find much of what you have to say reflects thoughts and feelings I haven't yet found a way to express. Sometimes your posts make me breath a sigh of relief or even laugh out loud. You've a real gift.
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