Getting in front of a camera is an incredible way to get to know the self.
Having a stage gives you an opportunity to hear, feel, see, sense, experience yourself and explore the edges of who you want to be... and so I thank dance + theatre for the role they've played in my personal development.
But is with the embodied wisdom gained from my studies in Yoga, that I began seeing photography for its depth of potential, and started using modeling as an awareness practice.
As I moved from pose to pose in front of the camera, I allowed my awareness to include that of my body, breath, my connection to Nature (body & environment) + my relation to soul (truth).
In my movements & in my stillness I began to pay attention to where I was relaxed or tense. I started becoming aware of how I felt when my expression was authentic and organic (conscious beingness) and when I was putting on a show (unconscious performance) and when it was a beautiful intentional weaving of the two (conscious beingness as performance).
In every pose I found more of myself. The camera created a stage for me to play in the exploration of my own truth.
And when I found that sweet spot of "YES, this feels like unfiltered LIFE expressing itself through me", I'd flow there, relax into it then engage the body again by extending or dramatising each pose to accentuate it's expression for the image... continuing to notice the nerve-state of my jaw, eyes, shoulders... of my breath....
Flowing from movement to movement, pose to pose... I discovered myself. I was aware of the poses that felt more comfortable and those that felt edgey, and others that didn't feel like me at all ~ I got to KNOW myself.
After each session, the photos gave me an opportunity to both reflect on where I was in my journey of embodiment and reflect on the ways I was still learning to love and accept myself. Could I allow myself to see my own beauty in the pictures I wanted to hide others from seeing?
Over the years, the playground of my photo shoots developed further. As the model, I started to also use them as an opportunity track myself in the moment & direct the intentions my own becoming through expanding to new expressions of embodied truth.
To allow the deeper truths of self that had integrated in-between sessions, to have a chance to play with being seen... first and foremost, by me.
I noticed over time a deeper embodiment, the knowing of myself, and in that an integration of my own wholeness.
AND I've gotten to see that in exploring myself that whole time, an ESSENCE of who I am which is unchanging. Through the practice of being embodied in every session, I both changed and transmitted the infinite essence of who I am.
x
