nevertheless, she persisted.

i've been wanting to get into photography for a while now but so many of my friends are photographers & it makes me feel insecure about the photos i take. i'm a slow learner so i still can't figure out all of the settings on my camera & i get embarrassed in front of a lens but i never know how to pose someone else when i'm behind a camera. i only ever experiment w photo-taking when i'm alone taking photos of myself

i don't feel comfortable enough to have other people be my model but i also don't feel comfortable enough to do some of the things that i want to do. if my vision has nudity, i don't want to ask anyone else to model for it but i also don't feel secure & comfortable enough to be in it myself. sometimes this means i don't get to take the kind of photos that i have in mind which sucks but it is what it is

while looking through my box of facepainting supplies, i found some fake blood & figured i could use it some day. then one day, i had a photo idea but i didn't get around to taking the photos for a while bc of work & bc, honestly, i kept forgetting to bring the fake blood into the bathroom w me. but finally i remembered. it's hard to take photos of yourself w a DSLR where you can't see what you look like in front of the camera (unless you set up a mirror behind it on live view mode) & no tripod. but i recently got an iphone xr & i heard the camera was supposed to be a lot better so i tried to play around w the different lighting modes

i don't usually have a "meaning" or a huge deep concept behind some of my stuff other than "i thought it would be cool." usually, through the process of creating the work, a meaning forms after. these photos started w "i wanted to take photos w fake blood" but while trying different poses & re-taking photos, trying to figure out how i want to edit them & what would look good for each photo, i veered toward a darker (not literally bc the photos are pretty bright) idea

this one is my favorite out of the 4 photos i took

they turned into a representation of my fears/monsters/darkness. no specific thing but just the general, cloudy idea. i see my past experiences, my bad times, my dark places but i feel like anyone could look at these photos & see their own, different monsters, different darkness. sometimes i hate that people try to be so deep in art when some pieces don't mean anything more than the fact that the artist wanted to do it. but i love art where you look at it, & you feel something, like you can understand it