the girl who made it on her own
back to the roots
Eleven years ago, I was in the middle of my fifty two weeks project, where I took a self portrait every week to document what I was experiencing and feeling during my last year of school. For the final photograph in mid September, during the last week before I was turning twenty, I covered a tree in sunflowers, my favourite flowers, trying to put the feeling of ”making it on my own“ into an image. After this project had ended, I put my digital camera to the side a lot, falling more and more in love with film photography. About one and a half years later, while I was working on my portfolio for my uni application, I rediscovered the joy of laying in puddles in the cold or exploring new places in search of a shooting location. And still, over the years my approach to photography changed quite a bit. I documented more and took less self portraits. Setting up a tripod and a camera didn’t feel as natural anymore, yet every time I did, I seemed to grasp a little bit of the person I used to be and at the same time feel connected to who I still am deep down. In a heavy moment in mid November in 2019, I went to find the place where I took the fifty-second photo of my project nine years prior, searching for parts of the person I used to be so many years ago. On a whim, I tried to put my feelings into a new photograph in the same spot. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be, but as I was sitting there, I could really feel myself. And that’s what photography has always been for me for over ten years now.
back to the roots
Eleven years ago, I was in the middle of my fifty two weeks project, where I took a self portrait every week to document what I was experiencing and feeling during my last year of school. For the final photograph in mid September, during the last week before I was turning twenty, I covered a tree in sunflowers, my favourite flowers, trying to put the feeling of ”making it on my own“ into an image. After this project had ended, I put my digital camera to the side a lot, falling more and more in love with film photography. About one and a half years later, while I was working on my portfolio for my uni application, I rediscovered the joy of laying in puddles in the cold or exploring new places in search of a shooting location. And still, over the years my approach to photography changed quite a bit. I documented more and took less self portraits. Setting up a tripod and a camera didn’t feel as natural anymore, yet every time I did, I seemed to grasp a little bit of the person I used to be and at the same time feel connected to who I still am deep down. In a heavy moment in mid November in 2019, I went to find the place where I took the fifty-second photo of my project nine years prior, searching for parts of the person I used to be so many years ago. On a whim, I tried to put my feelings into a new photograph in the same spot. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be, but as I was sitting there, I could really feel myself. And that’s what photography has always been for me for over ten years now.