Self Portrait with Net and Hand: Booklearning

If you photograph people, it's important to get on the other side of the lens regularly. There are lessons to be learned by exposing yourself to the pitiless eye of your camera.

Lessons of acceptance and defiance that help me learn about myself.

Lessons to be taken from which images I chose to present here, and which never made it past the first cut.

It helps that I was once a life model, back when I was young, slim and pretty, but what I see now is someone else entirely. Even the face has changed from what I remember in the mirror of many years ago, when I had a reason to look more often than I do now.

The shock is, I suppose, good for the system, we need to know who we are so that we can reveal (or conceal) who our subjects are, but it's always a cruel lesson. One could hide behind such statements as "every image I create is a self portrait" or "I reveal the world as I see it through my own eyes" but there's nothing quite like stripping down and showing yourself your own warts and lumps. I share them with you now, should you care to look with me at this strange creature who somehow took over my body.

Kim Taylor, circa 2007