love note #2 first self-portraits.

emmabarnfieldinfo
Oct 26, 2022
2 min read

Updated: Mar 14, 2023

In this letter, I thought I would take a trip back to when I first began taking self-portraits in 2014 some of these images have never been shared, going in search of the hard drives to find these photos have been so exciting and another layer of healing has taken place I guess there's something about revisiting your old self and taking that time to reflect on you now, so fascinating it almost feels you visit an old timeline you remember how you were feeling and what was happening in your life at the moment it always fascinated me how you can look at old photos and remember, photography really is a pause in time.

Taking self-portraits got me out of my head and into my body it opened up something that I wasn’t expecting. I knew the powers of putting yourself in front of the camera I was already witnessing this with the women I was photographing and how it was making them feel It never occurred to me to do the same and it wasn’t until much later that I realized I was avoiding it, sure I would take business profile photos and silly photos but it's not the same and I thought in the back of my mind that yeah I'm ok with photos of myself blahhhhh yet deep down there was this insecurity of my skinniness my teeth my bones my spots my small breasts my scars and flaws my self-esteem I honestly got into my head that I wasn't worthy who would want to look at me it's only now that I NEEDED TO LOOK AT ME yes that needed to be in bold caps because this is a powerful statement!!

I didn’t realize how much I had lost my voice and myself so scared to be in this body so scared to feel and love myself to use my voice and that’s what self-portraits opened up for me doing this gave me my voice back *I don’t mean lost my actual voice hummmm but then maybe I did lose my actual voice - I pause here taking a sip of my coffee staring out the window in contemplation………..

I figure that’s where this next part comes in as October draws to a close, October is domestic violence awareness month. For 4 years I was in a relationship that was physically and emotionally abusive, for me personally, I've held onto a lot of shame and heartbreak it was very traumatizing and has left me with PTSD two-thirds of domestic abuse victims experience PTSD (more than 2x the rate of soldiers in combat) it's not an easy thing to talk about because there is a lot of stigmas attached and how it leaves many women and men feeling. I have enclosed some links below if you would some more information.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-abuse-how-to-get-help

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/