Self-Portraits, New York, NY

Here goes nothing! One of my goals for 2017 is to push myself into more creative everyday photography - (versus just pulling out my camera for special occasions.) With that in mind, I'm taking on the "original" Dogwood 52 week photography challenge!  It encompasses a year's worth of weekly photo prompts and a thriving online community to celebrate and critique each other's work. 

I was less-than-thrilled with the first week's prompt - a "self portrait". I'm not a selfie-taker, in any scenario. My years of beauty insecurities versus my fierce desire for authenticity; my need for affirmation, versus my reluctance to ADMIT my need for affirmation just brews a miasma of awkwardness that renders the whole experience wildly unpleasant. However, two of my most exciting Christmas gifts happened to be a tripod AND a camera remote, so if there was ever a time to try to photograph myself......?

My positive take aways from week one are:

1) I actually ended up with pictures that are highly representative of who and where I am currently. This is my uniform every.single.day.  Hat pulled down around my ears, mittens, giant coat, almost-zero exposed skin in order to get me through the 6+ blocks I walk to work.  New York City is my current neighborhood - and while it originally loomed like a daunting behemoth across the river, I've grown increasingly confident navigating it, and grown into a healthy appreciation for it's quirky, troublesome, and expansive beauty. 

2) One of the biggest frustrations of a fledgling photographer is to have your finished work fall woefully short of the brilliant image in your head. There was a lightbulb moment looking at these where I realized that I have that experience far less than I used to. It's a really satisfying thing to look at your images and say "Yep. These turned out exactly how I wanted them to."

Follow me on instagram to see which of these I picked for my final "Week One"! And check back for next week's challenge - a "traditional landscape"!