loneliness

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I’ve always been an introvert. I genuinely enjoy being alone, traveling alone, wandering with a camera, and having space to think. But around this time I began to understand that enjoying solitude and feeling lonely are two very different things.

I was starting to want deeper companionship, while also being afraid of what that might require from me. Relationships felt uncertain and complicated, and I had spent a long time keeping parts of myself hidden. Slowly, though, I was becoming more open to the idea of being known.

Looking at these photographs now, that is what I see in them. A single figure surrounded by a lot of empty space. Comfortable being alone, but beginning to wonder whether I wanted to stay that way.

I didn’t know where any of that would lead. I just knew I could surrender it to God and trust that He understood my heart better than I did.

Contact sheet from the 2011 fine art self-portrait series Loneliness, photographed beside a quiet pond and wetlands in the Pacific Northwest.
Loneliness — contact sheet showing the progression of a quiet 2011 self-portrait session beside the water.

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