Channelling the Bad

Well the more I look at this picture the more I read into it. I actually took it as an accident at the end of a shoot I did this morning of one of our products at work. The backdrop and strobes where already up and so I fired off 5 shots that could potentially be used as today's blip - a nice self portrait I thought. And, without thinking, opened a can of emotional worms inside my head.

I looked awful. The thing that struck me most about myself was my chin and neck. Huge double chin and a throat like a 95 year old turkey. I also have a cold sore at the moment so my face doesn't exactly look peachy... I am no longer the 9 stone I was at college (20 years ago I studied dance at college and was doing 5 - 7 hours of exercise a day!) I'm looking like the 38 year old 14 stone dad I am.

I play flag football and I know i'm the slowest - the oldest. In my head I still think I have what it takes. I still think I can compete, dance and sprint and move. Today I saw some photgraphs that made me look exactly like I felt. Fat and unattractive.

I also realised that due to getting up at 6am this morning to go to work after the Christmas holidays I had kept on the same t-shirt I sleep in sometimes. Its big and baggy and comfy. Its a retro t shirt depicting the helmet of my beloved team, the New York Jets. For any one following the NFL I don't have to say what an appalling year the jets have had in 2012 maybe the shirts emotion rubbed off on me too.

Really not a good day to take a self portrait for 365. But then I realised something...

Of the 5 shots I took this one was actually me trying to get my shirt to hang better BETWEEN shots and the camera fired. The other 4 shots that were posed and supposed to make me look cool looked so unlike my self image I have of myself that I could hardly bear to look at them. I was about to delete the lot when I realised that THIS shot said more about me than the other "posed" shots. I had captured more than I actually thought. I captured the emotion I am feeling on the inside as well as the out...

The shirt is being pulled out of shape and it makes me look even bigger. However, Even though in our heads we know this is an optical illusion and in fact the SHIRT is big - my body is not (well not quite as big as the shirt anyway). It is a weird shape and contorts my body along with the arm extending out (holding the remote) The effect is strange and unattractive but I actually quite like that fact. It's like I am not comfortable in my clothes. In my body shape and I'm pulling against it to try and make it fit. Humorously also, I'm pulling at the logo as if I'm emotionally distraught not only with myself but with my team too - Come on jets!! Sort it out -

So, am I happy with my posting today or not? Well I would be lying if I did not confess to mixed emotions. Overall I like the picture. I don't like my body or face in it but the other 4 were much MUCH worse and at least this has a story about it. Technically its ok too. But I guess it has got me thinking (and not only that I'm usually BEHIND the camera for a reason) that actually, the only person that can make me feel better is me. I can lose weight, I can get fitter. The year before last I ran a 10k and lost nearly a stone - guess what before Christmas I signed up for another at the end of February and I have been running the last 4 days in a row. It may actually be this resurgence of physical exercise that has made me feel today that I look awful. At least I'm out there running and tonight I will be running even harder. Flag training starts again tomorrow after the Christmas break and our team is entering the UK league for the second time -we made the playoffs last year and I have a drive now to get better, get faster...

I really hope that later down the year I will look at this photograph and smile knowing that I am not this person I am today.


I also realised something else today. That this is what 365 is about. Its not just a photographic website. The more I read, the more I understand it as a journal. A diary for self expression and emotion. Somedays I will be posting silly things and will be happy, sometimes I won't. Perhaps that days picture will reflect the emotions I'm feeling on that day, other times it will just be what it is...a picture. Some days I will be writing stories and interpretations into my pictures such as todays piscture. Other days I will be just be having fun and shooting.

Its a long way from day 4 to 365 and its surely going to be a bumpy ride.