2019: A Year Of Portraits
The Project: Twins on a year long self-portrait photography journey.
[NICOLE] In 2016 I bought a Sony a6300. I was tired of only having a cell phone camera and I had a big trip planned that I wanted to really document. While I’d taken some photography classes in school, and felt pretty comfortable with my ‘eye’… I had no idea what I was doing. I mostly kept it in automatic and mostly the shots looked fine. Still, I felt pretty silly. Here I was with a great little camera and I was barely scratching the surface of its potential. More trips and adding some amazing photographers to my social-media-feeds, and I guess you could say the bug bit. I wanted to make purposeful choices and push myself. One of the photographers both my sister and I had been following was Lizzy Gadd. On her FAQ page she mentioned a 365 project - taking a self portrait every day for a year. It sounded overwhelming. I’m a post production person! I want to be BEHIND the scenes, not dead center. And taking a photo of myself EVERY day? There was no way I’d keep it up. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I was. Would I learn to be more comfortable on both sides of the camera? Would I learn how to actually SMILE in a non-grimacey way on command? (Spoiler alert, NOPE! ha.) As 2019 approached I sort of casually mentioned the idea to my twin sister. She was on board. And I was locked in. We started up a private instagram and vowed to hold each other accountable. The rules? A photo a day. Can be taken by yourself or someone else as long as you’re the one ‘directing’ the image. “Real” cameras preferred, but cell phones allowed. I started the year with a post-midnight shot of reading a book on my couch. Ugh, I thought, what did I get myself into?
[ALEXIS] Years ago my friend Tim Shannon sent me his old Lumix camera. I was about to head to Iceland for the first time with Nicole and the camera was fancier than I anything I had used in a while. Tim knew I had taken photography classes when we were in college and he has always been great at pushing me to create art. I thought it would be like riding a bike — but wow was I wrong. I did a pretty good job pointing and shooting but I kept the thing on “automatic” for the most part and the best photos we have are from when Nicole took over and actually metered things. I used to think I was GOOD at photography (and objectively, I was actually kind of decent) but when you stop using a skill it tends to drift away. Still, Tim kept pushing me and we swapped images back and forth for the next few years. He fed me kickstarter links for art lens and I went for it, still pretending I knew what I was doing. It’s kind of easy to make an interesting image when your goal is just “something cool” and you have a lens that creates starbursts. It was pretty casual and pretty meh. I obscured my complete lack of technical skill with costumes and moody shots plus a fair amount of quick and dirty filters from cheap editing software. When Nicole started to get more serious about photography it felt super silly to have so much equipment and so little understanding of what to do with it. She suggested a photo a day and I was on board, despite not having a computer to edit and not really having any idea what I was taking on. I’m BAD in front of a lens, but I don’t naturally live behind a lens either. Even though I carried a point-and-shoot waterproof Nikon on all of my hikes (in its cool little hip pouch) most of the photos from my adventures were shot by my friends. I figured this may be a way to shake the dust off my gear, learn what a good angle means and document some of my weekend adventures. And hell, I already had Tim’s nice camera and some fun lenses, so why not?. Turned out -- I couldn’t even charge that first Lumix when January hit. Yeah -- it’d been a while. I scrambled and found a used Lumix G7 and begged Nicole to look the other way while I used my cell phone and my point-and-shoot hiking Nikon and I rolled in to 2019 with a cool project and no idea how to pull it off.
[NICOLE] Starting in the winter time was tough - limited daylight hours meant constant frustration with my apartment and the backgrounds it allowed. I started noticing things though- the wood floor has an amazing shine at a certain time of morning. Some cheap colored lights let me use my white walls to some fun effect. When in doubt- corral the cat into being a ‘prop’. At first I liked the challenge of being in front of the camera. It was so contrary to anything I’d done. Over time though, I started to feel like a selfie-obsessed instagrammer. I was self conscious and often embarrassed. I started the project with big dreams of interesting location shots. I bought a self timer, but I was terrified to walk too far away from my camera in NYC. I took lots of photos coming home from the gym. I learned about long exposures with late flash. I took lazy shots curled up on the couch, and dramatic super involved shots in dresses in fields. I bought smoke bombs and conscripted anyone I could into helping me. I took some really fun shots of our Mom (while playing with smoke bombs and gold dresses. Our family rocks). I learned to play in front of the camera. I learned when I’m behind the camera I need to give feedback. Direct. Be confident in what I’m looking for, help the person in front be the best they can. I sort of learned to take direction myself.
[ALEXIS] In addition to the scramble for a camera, I didn’t have a way to edit anything besides lightroom on my phone. I hate working on a computer when I’m not at work and my “computer” has, for the last few years, just been the machine I get from my company. This works well enough in general, but not when you’re trying to edit photos that may or may not be something you want coworkers seeing over your shoulder or IT finding if your computer crashes. Nothing terrible, but not every shot was anywhere close to flattering. Lightroom works on a cell phone, but there are, obviously, limitations. We’re just posting on Instagram, I thought. What does it matter? But every day I saw what Nicole was posting and it looked better, cleaner, sharper. She had more control and my work felt juvenile. In late Spring I dove in and got myself a Mac. What a difference!
[NICOLE] The project got me out just trying things. If I hadn’t taken my shot yet, I started to feel anxious. It was a to-do list that would never be complete. At the same time, it gave me a framework - while traveling I had a reason to document myself on trips. With family I had an excuse to set up my camera and capture moments. Friends laughed and helped me take awkward shots at bars. Uncomfortable just standing in front of a camera, I have a billion and a half shots of me walking, one way or the other, just to add motion (or run back so my camera didn’t get snatched). The shots of mine I like the best from the year have strong pops of color. I took a lot of unflattering photos that never saw the light of day. I’ve documented various hair shades, a consistent weight loss and finding my way to fitness. I upgraded my a6300 for an a7iii and took it on an amazing trip to New Zealand. I filled a huge book with photos from that trip, and I’d like to think that some of the things I’ve learned this past year really helped me capture not only the vistas, but the great adventure my partner and I had.
[ALEXIS] I’m lucky that my partner supported me throughout this project. Before we settled in each evening he’d stop and make sure I had my photo taken for the day. Even if he was mildly annoyed at me turning our house into a studio, he still helped me pick what image to post. He humored me while I made him stand somewhere to set up focus and then swapped places with me to take the picture. He has a good eye, but he has no idea how to use my camera and his inability to change any settings forced me to set things up correctly. It also resulted in some lovely framed but poorly exposed shots when he moved away from where I had tried to place him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I even dragged him in front of the camera a few times and we have more photos together from this past year than our entire time together. Not just dumb photos, but photos of us laughing, photos of pure enjoyment as we spent time together. I look back on the photos of us from this past year and I am awestruck by how much of our love I was able to capture on (digital) film. This is incredible because he actually HATES photos of himself and he HATES being in front of a camera. And yet, there he was, mugging for my lens or shouting directions to me from behind the camera. Now give a tour! You’re a sea monster! Cover shot of women in tech! Work it! Another unexpected aspect of this project are the photos of our animals. Miss Mazzy, our cat, went from a spry 16 to suddenly old and very sick. We spent time together rolling in sunlight and exploring the backyard and I was able to document these moments. After she was put down the photos of her beautiful and happy made her death a little bit easier.
[NICOLE] I’m glad the project is over, but at the same time - I strangely miss it. So we’re changing the parameters and continuing into 2020. This year we’re using prompts, and they don’t have to be self-portraits. We’ve got a list of ideas, and using a random number generator, we’re picking one a week, to take three photos per prompt. Our first prompt is ‘mistake’, and it’s already been a struggle. Below are four of my favorite shots from the project, and I think they span the year well. From crazy costumes to balancing my camera on a pole on the street, playing with light, shape and color in ways both VERY contrived and just sort of there - it’s been quite a year. I can’t wait to see what we end up with at the end of 2020.
[ALEXIS] It felt like a slog, but at the end of the year I can look back and see just how much I learned. I learned how to take up more space, how to set up a shot in the woods in a dress and laugh instead of curl into myself with embarrassment. I learned how to actually edit, how to play with exposure and settings through both my camera and through LightRoom. I learned that I often focus on one thing and ignore the rest -- like when I realized everything was crooked because I saw the subject but not the horizon line. I learned (and have to keep reminding myself) to, dear lord, check the ISO. Can’t manage to take a single shot inside? Oh yeah, I have it set for 400 on a bright sunny day and it’s 10 pm and I’m dragging the dogs into a shot in our dimly lit living room. I learned how to use lens filters and focal lengths and f stops. I had some photos in a show. I have more costume dresses than I know what to do with it. I’m excited to see how this evolves and what 2020 holds, even if I haven’t started on our next assignment and it’s Friday of the first week and I have to finish it up by tonight to stay on pace with Nicole!
