MOOD: Portrait.
I'm not the most social person. I don't have much of a social life, unfortunately. And that's primarily for two reasons: one, I deal with a lot of depression and social anxiety - like to the point where I am diagnosed with having Asperger's syndrome - and two... well, I don't really live in the most active of places. But even so, I still have a certain fascination with portrait photography. (I like most kinds, but portraits are the most interesting to me, along with candids; there's a lot to pick apart from the ones that are taken with deliberate intent.)
And yes, the man in these pictures is me. I took all of these, and edited them myself. I've done a lot of work in editing my own photographs, as my Blindness project shows, but... lately, I've been interested in more subtle changes like color grading and manipulation of contrast.
I've been told that I have a very intimidating nature about me. That I give off a sort of... brooding, mysterious vibe. Which is funny because at first, I kinda took that as a compliment; at first, I kinda liked being sort of an enigma to people. It led me to believe that maybe it'd leave people curious enough to want to take an interest in me. At least, that was my thought process at the time. However, years of social experience have taught me that... well, that intimidation factor has helped me as much as it's hurt me. On the one hand, people don't really look at me as someone you should jerk around, and more as someone you ought to take seriously... but on the other hand, there weren't a lot of people who were eager or willing to take that extra step in getting to know me as a person.
As a result, I've had to deal with recurrent feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Some days, I don't mind it a whole lot. You know, sometimes I like to tell myself that I'm good enough with the way that I am that I can live with not having a lot of people to really interact with. At the very least, I do find comfort in knowing that I have privacy. But on other days, on more rainy days...
There's an emptiness that I feel; a void. And if I stop myself and think about it for too long, I start to question if maybe there's something wrong with me. And if there is, then what could I do to fix it. If there even is a fix to this sort of problem.
I've never really been able to come up with answer to these sorts of questions, but... I guess that's just one of the things we have to grapple with throughout our lives. That sort of existential feeling of fulfillment and purpose, and the questions that it asks about ourselves and such.
( Ignore the long fingernail. Took these before I went ahead and trimmed them; this was a very spur of the moment shoot. )
This won't be my last series of portraits. I know that I have at least one more in the works. Though I do hope that whoever's looking through these happens to pull some form of appreciation from it. Even if my musings were a little more on the somber, melancholic side.
CAMERA: Nikon D5000 | LENS: AF-S NIKKOR 35mm 1:1.8G | PROGRAM: Adobe Photoshop CS6
Model / Photographer / Editor: Hosea Douglas. (me)
