Friday, November 16

Thoughts on Self Portraits

It recently occurred to me that my collection of self portraits is quite extensive, and lately I have had several thoughts that have helped me to make sense of the fact why I am often part of my own pictures.

As a teenager, 15 or 16 years old, I would lock myself in my room, and shoot rolls of film of myself with a small point and shoot camera using the self timer. I did not show the pictures to anyone, and unfortunately, I don't know where they are anymore.

I was a shy person, insecure, trying to stay invisible, unsure about who I was and frightened. Frightened of the world, of my suffocating, small world, and of the big world out there I had not quite entered yet. As the youngest daughter of a lutheran minister within a predominately secular culture, I felt different for most of my life. I grew up sheltered, kept away from anything of "bad influence" and "inappropriate", a victim of fundamentalist religious beliefs. 
There was a subtle suppression of all things in which I showed an interest in, art most of all. I wanted to be an actress, a singer,  a designer, a poet, play the cello in a band, paint huge murals, travel the world with a backpack and a camera, dress fashionably and provocative and somehow leave a mark on this world. Instead I became a nurse, which was not right for me yet felt safe and proper to do, remaining enclosed and frightened. I don't blame my parents anymore, more the environment that we were all part of.

In my late teens and early twenties I experienced on and off periods of depression, despair, and anxiety followed by an escape, and a cautious attempt to escape from my prison of insecurity and fundamentalist beliefs. Years of struggle, falling backwards, moving forward, taking risks, falling again, trying once more; all this helped to break down some of the walls. 

Taking self portraits as a teenager was a way for me to build my own world, a world of creativity, encouragement, inspiration and dreams. I stepped into a different role, different clothes. There was room for honest emotions, and dreams and desires mattered.

Five years ago, I started taking photos again, and quickly rediscovered that this part of me had been suppressed for a long time, the desire to express myself visually. It isn't often my intention to simply take a self portrait as I mostly think about an idea, an emotion, or a concept before I take my pictures, and I see it as a convenience that I am right there to be part of my own visual creations. I desire to visualize the struggles and the pain of life, the experiences of loss and grief and my journey toward self knowledge. It's a long journey, one we all have to take, but I believe that we can approach this state of knowing why we are here, which will ultimately lead us toward peace, beauty, honesty, simplicity and contentment.

My self portraits are mostly parts of smaller series that I work on and have posted on this blog before.

Here is a selection from the past five years.


2007 unintentional and blurry, this picture is significant to me as it shows a strong resemblance to my maternal grandmother
2008 late summer evening
2008 the curtain in Chicago
2008 untitled
2009 Hotel Room Window
2009 The Shelter
2009 Self with Leaf
2010 New Year's Anxiety
2011 Winter Bath
2010 what one can see
2010 "... and they have escaped the weight of darkness" inspired by Olafur Arnalds Album of the same title
2011 Fragile
2011 untitled
2012 Anticipation
2012 Fragments (part of series)
2012 Fall Bliss
2012 Sleeping in the Forest (part of series)
2012 Sleeping in the Forest (part of series)
2012 On a Quiet Morning (part of series)





















  all images © Manuela Thames














4 comments:

Bethany said...

Beautiful.

Julia said...

I know your story so well but it is still really moving to read it here all together. I think the fact that you have arrived at the place of being able to tell the story and put it all together with these portraits marks big progress in your journey toward artistic courage and insight. Like that Kierkegaard quote on A's blog: "We only understand life backwards, but we must live it forwards."

Evelina said...

Despite coming from all different background, I relate to much of the described... This "I was a shy person, insecure, trying to stay invisible",
and this "I desire to visualize the struggles and the pain of life, the experiences of loss and grief and my journey toward self knowledge. It's a long journey, one we all have to take, but I believe that we can approach this state of knowing why we are here, which will ultimately lead us toward peace, beauty, honesty, simplicity and contentment.",
are what made me study Philosophy at the university; and the second passage I could have well written on my own blog, as it sounds so much as something that I often express in almost the same words in private conversations. Maybe even too often, because recently a friend of mine reported a short conversation she had with a common friend of ours from high school; that other friend whom I almost don't see any more, asked what I was doing in life and if "she is still always talking about the meaning of life". Sigh. I am.

And, really, congratulations for the courage to tell the story and for the courage you must have had in all these years in order to be able, now, to post this.

Manuela said...

Thank you so much, Evelina.