Inspired by some of the great photographers on Flickr, along with turning 45 last month and finding myself looking backward and forward and thinking that I’ve finally got a handle on just who the person inside this lump of flesh is, I decided to start a self portrait project.

I spent about 3 hours this morning taking almost 200 photos of myself, most of which were blurry and none of which I really liked. That’s where it got fun, though, because the nature of photography or any art and creativity is that reality isn’t necessarily the goal. Which leads me to thinking, who’s reality would I be depicting, anyway? What I see in the mirror isn’t even the same as what my friends see, as they are looking through a lens of personality, mine and theirs – even so-called reality is open to interpretation.

The Self Portrait Project is an attempt to capture the “me” I feel most comfortable being, even if it isn’t necessarily a “reality” in my eyes all the time, or the eyes of those who think they know me best.  It’s a celebration of creativity, of seeing outside the box, of living out loud, of not taking things so seriously and remembering that life really is (really!) supposed to be fun. It’s my way of putting to rest the person who looked to everyone else for approval, and celebrating the woman that listens to the voice within, whether it’s telling her to sleep with a rock (blog forthcoming), dance naked in the moonlight (I haven’t done that yet, but I did do karaoke) or just sit quietly knowing that sometimes it doesn’t necessarily seem so, but really, it’s all good.

The image here is called “early morning quiet” . . . I’m sitting where my dog Daisy normally hangs to look out the window. I included the original shot to illustrate  reality and interpretation.

Self Portrait. 3 July 2009

original image for self portrait.

*To view the Flickr gallery, click on the top photo.
* All photos copyright karal l gregory 2009.