Self_ : Portraits

Winter is a very reflective time of year for me... Nature seems to have intended it to be so, by being cold and driving us indoors to warm places (metaphorically, driving us down into ourselves, into our soul's fire).

Fortunately, work also slows down for me this time of year and I am able to really dedicate time to rest, meditation, and reflection. This is the time to catch up on Zzz's, and to catch up on looking inward and reassessing the person you have grown into over the course of the year. Where did Spring, Summer and Autumn take you? What did they teach you? Questions like these, and also the searching ones like, "who do you want to grow into next year?" and "what do you want to accomplish next year?" all circle around me like crows. I watch them soar and every so often, I'll pluck one out of the sky and examine it more closely.

It probably isn't a surprise, then, that I've been a little obsessed with artistic self-portraiture lately. I have some really involved ideas that will really stretch (and hopefully, advance) my experience with Photoshop.  The ideas are a little abstract, and require a lot of planning... but I'm looking forward to getting more nitty gritty and delving inward by using my camera instead of my traditional outlets (poetry, painting, sketching).

Enjoy these few recents (two are edits of existing photos, one is fresh). More to come this winter.


I light candles and wonder
if there are stars as dim as them;


listless Pyroeads tethered to wicks,
solemnly awaiting their eventual extinguish.

Fairy Lights

circa 1980

Stalactite