Why I Keep Turning the Camera on Myself
What self-portraiture has taught me about photography, creativity, and being on the other side of the lens
I’ve been a photographer for a long time, but every once in a while, I turn the camera around and photograph myself.
Not because I particularly love having my picture taken. And definitely not because I always feel comfortable in front of the camera.
Mostly, I do it because I want to make something.
Self-portraiture gives me a place to experiment without anyone else depending on the outcome. I can try an idea that might not work. Wear something ridiculous. Drag a dress outside. Play with light. Be overly dramatic. Change my mind halfway through. Make something beautiful. Make something terrible.
There’s no client waiting for a gallery at the end of it.
And that freedom has become an important part of how I grow as a photographer.
A Place to Play
A lot of my work is planned very intentionally. When I’m photographing someone else, I’m thinking about them — who they are, how they want to feel, what we’re trying to create together, what will make them comfortable, and what will make the images feel like them.
Self-portraits are different.
They give me permission to follow an idea simply because I’m curious about it.
Sometimes it starts with an outfit. Sometimes a location. Sometimes interesting light coming through a window. Sometimes I just have an image in my head and want to see if I can make it exist.
There doesn’t always have to be a reason.
And I think photographers need that.
Not everything we create has to be for a client, a portfolio, Instagram, or a business goal. Sometimes making something simply because you want to make it is enough.
Ironically, those experiments almost always find their way back into my client work anyway.
I learn something about light. Or movement. Or colour. Or composition. I try something I wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
And slowly, all those little experiments become part of the way I see.
Being in Front of the Camera Is Weird
Self-portraiture has also taught me something completely different:
Being photographed is vulnerable.
I know exactly what the camera is doing. I understand lenses and angles and light. I know that one strange frame means absolutely nothing.
And I can still suddenly become very aware of my face.
And my hands.
What are my hands doing?
Am I standing weird?
What is my mouth doing?
It’s actually pretty funny considering I spend so much of my life telling other people not to worry about those exact things.
But it has made me much more aware of what I’m asking of someone when they step in front of my camera.
Most people aren’t models. They don’t arrive knowing what to do with their body or where to look or how to move naturally while someone points a camera at them.
They shouldn’t have to.
That’s my job.
I don’t expect the people I photograph to know how to be photographed. I want to create enough direction, trust and room to play that eventually they stop thinking quite so much about the camera.
That’s usually when the interesting photographs start happening.
Then I Gave Myself an Assignment
Earlier this year, I decided to make self-portraiture a more deliberate creative practice.
I called the project FLO Field Notes.
The idea was to use myself as a testing ground . To experiment with ideas, push my photography in a more editorial direction, learn what I liked, learn what I didn’t, and share some of that process along the way.
I created five:
01 — Monochrome
02 — Emergence
03 — April Showers
04 — Moody
05 — Be Your Own Met Gala
And I loved doing them.
I also discovered that there may, in fact, be such a thing as too many self-portraits.
Five shoots in a fairly short period of time meant coming up with five concepts, photographing five concepts, being the person in all five concepts, editing five shoots and then turning all of that into something to share.
Apparently I had accidentally given myself another job.
Lesson learned. Though, FLO Fields will be back.
Part of the Practice
Looking back through self-portraits I’ve made over the years, I can see little pieces of the photographer I was becoming.
Ideas I was testing before I had words for them.
An attraction to cinematic light. Movement. Mood. Fashion. Storytelling. Images that feel a little more like they belong in a magazine than in a traditional portrait studio.
Some experiments worked.
Some definitely didn't.
But that's the point.
Self-portraiture isn't really about having photographs of myself.
It's part of my practice.
It gives me somewhere to play, somewhere to fail, and somewhere to explore what kind of photographer I want to become.
And every so often, when I turn the camera back around and photograph someone else, I realize I've brought something new with me.
Want to Step in Front of My Camera?
One thing I’ve learned from all these self-portraits is that I would occasionally like to experiment on someone other than myself.
From time to time, I put out model calls when I have a creative idea I want to explore , such as, an editorial concept, an interesting location, a lighting experiment, or sometimes simply an excuse to make something.
I share those opportunities through The Spotlight, my occasional newsletter, along with new work, behind-the-scenes stories and other things happening at FLO.
If being part of one of my future creative experiments sounds like your kind of fun, join The Spotlight below. You might just end up in front of my camera.
