So, let's try this.

I've been considering giving blogging another try (I've tried a few times in the past but never got very far), and figured now was the time because I am beginning a year-long photography workshop/class with Tracey Clark over at Big Picture Classes. The class is called Picture Inspiration, and it's a spinoff of some other wonderful but shorter classes Tracey's given there and I've had the good fortune to take in the past year. There is still time to join the class, if it interests you. Seems to me that blogging what I do for that class each week will at the very least have me blogging once a week, so it's a perfect way to start. And ideally I'll blog more often than that. I've had things I've wanted to share that don't really fit the flickr or facebook formats.

So on to the Picture Inspiration assignment of the week (Week 1). Tracey asked us to share a self-portrait. I've taken a number of self-portraits over the past year and I find that sometimes they are easier than others. Right now is not one of those times. I am having trouble being happy for the camera, and there's more going on that makes whole dealing with my self-image thing confusing. I tried to hide behind blur and bokeh and creativity, but I finally went with a simple self-portrait, setting my camera across the table from me.




Here is the description I wrote for flickr (do I want to repeat myself here? Better to start off doing so and take it away later on that to regret not doing it and have to go to the work of doing it in the future):

Self-portraits were supposed to get easier the more I did them, but right now they are feeling harder than ever. It's been a rough year, and it's taking it's toll on me.

I remember when my children were little and all about needs that required constant attention, and more experienced parents would say "it only gets harder when they hit adolescence," and I would laugh, because obviously teenagers didn't require the work that babies through pre-schoolers do.

Well, I can officially say now that parenting gets harder when they hit adolescence. When they're little, their needs and wants are obvious, and they demand help from Mommy. When they get older, their needs are just as strong but not as obvious, and figuring out how to help them is a lot harder.

And when they're little, you can share all your thoughts about parenting and your individual struggles with other parents, and you can be open about yourself. When they get older, there's pride and privacy and other considerations to take into account, and parenting becomes a lot more lonely.

Anyway, the self-portraits have become harder because I feel vulnerable in them, and I have a lot to say about them that I can't because my self-image is so entangled in theirs, and I have to be careful.

For Week 1 of Picture Inspiration