I've been feeling fuzzy lately - like there's static in my brain while it is simultaneously filled with syrup. Everything has been slow and crackly and like it may not actually be there. When I've tried to concentrate, my brain, the poor thing, has been pulled this way and that, all the while getting stuck in the syrupy. fuzzy sludge. It's not been a good brain week. (Well, brain fortnight, actually, but brain week sounds better.) So I decided to vent about it. Photographically.
Creating this took longer than I thought it would. My camera settings were off and had to be fixed several times, then it wouldn't focus and I couldn't work out why, then we made too harsh a light, then not light enough, then my shutter speed was way too slow, then way too fast. It was a struggle, hypothetical reader. A struggle.
I need to take a moment to thank my ever-patient other half, who sat for me while I huffed and puffed and tried to get my settings right, when I stubbornly refused to let it go for now and try again another day, when I whined at him for no reason (when things weren't working and my brain wasn't helping and I got a little bit stuck behind my tripod). I also need to thank him for letting me borrow his hands. Thank you, love.
I felt vulnerable shooting this image. I was out of my comfort zone with the lighting set-up, the room set-up (we'd spent the day rearranging our bedroom), and having my legs out while also sitting down - when pesky thighs spread and the stomach poofs out and dimples appear where you never expect to have dimples. I felt vulnerable editing it too because, despite the fact that I knew already that my face would be covered with white noise, I decided not to retouch my skin anywhere else. I've been feeling fuzzy and vulnerable and just a little bit off, I'm channelling that here.
And it makes me feel that little bit better.
I can't end this post without including the first iteration of this sort of concept. Shot during a failed 365 project attempt between 6 and 7 years ago (I thought it was 6 when I put it in my Instagram story but I am almost certain it was 7!) when I was around 20 years old and decided to drag an old television outside to my garden with its dilapidated, peeling shed before the little box that had been sat on my parents wall for years took a trip to the local tip, having been replaced with a thinner, sleeker model. I am having a hard time believing that 20 was that long ago.
I've come so far since then. (I hope).