There is a hierarchal aspect of being a portrait photographer that makes my skin crawl. For as much as I’d like to be seen as someone who knows what they are doing, the pressure of that assumption has made me feel so deeply uncomfortable at times that I have done everything to dismantle it. It seems I want the freedom to mess up, yet the external reassurance that insists I won’t.
I’ve tried to level the playing field by reminding people (and myself) that I am no different than they are, that I am human, and that I make mistakes (in case you’ve forgotten). But stating this doesn’t seem to erase the fact that as the photographer, I’m in control. I’ve got a job to do (whether I am being paid or not) and ultimately, I can see something they cannot.
I find the relationship between a subject’s display of their own vulnerability and the power I have simply by being the one to hold the camera to be just as terrifying as it is invigorating. However accustom to this dynamic I’ve become, it still manages to trigger the hell out of my imposter syndrome at times. Who gave me the right?
I don’t want that kind of power, and yet here I am. Something must feel good about it.
One motive for writing about my own stories of uncertainty, failure, and insecurity is to show that despite my capabilities, I am not perfect. I want to seem—I want to be—relatable. Because even though I want the person standing in front of me to trust me and have faith in my abilities, I don’t want them to pedestalize me.
But am I being pedestalized when a person correctly assumes I’m going to deliver a service I was simply hired to do? And do I need to display my wounds publicly in order to be given a free pass to make mistakes? Or can I give that permission to myself?
Where exactly does this pressure come from? The person standing in front of me or the standard I hold for myself that I’ve projected they have for me?
It seems harder to write about my strengths and to speak confidently about my work especially if self disclosure about what makes me human is easier to relate to. What would I write about if I didn’t write about my pain? My loss or my doubt? Does anyone want to read about the part where I win? The moment where it all went right?
Sometimes I think photography is one big lie, and my job is really just to tell the truth. So I write to undo the mystery of it all. I want my pictures to make people feel like they belong, like they can.
This is why I spend so much time acknowledging how difficult and awkward this work is—how uncomfortable it can be to stand in front of a stranger and be witnessed. But then I realize I’ve failed to talk about just how wonderful it can be. How fucking great it can feel to have the spotlight on you, to feel someone’s presence holy devoted to seeing you and your body and working with it all as if it were a painting. I forget to talk about the part where it feels like nothing else in the world matters—how time freezes when you witness yourself doing something you said you wouldn’t or couldn’t do.
Often times people tell me they are not afraid of how they look to themselves, but how they will be perceived by others. They can’t seem to help but skip ahead to the part where someone will inevitably have an opinion on how they look and what they’ve done. God forbid they come off as too cool in the photograph.
People want to look good, but not that good.
It seems for some of us the fear lies not in the knowledge of our shortcomings but in the awareness of the space we know we are capable of taking up. My guess is many of us know exactly who we are and what it is we’re doing, or at the very least more than we lead ourselves to believe.
In my experience of working predominantly with women and those who were socialized as women, most are hesitant if not terrified of what will happen if they present themselves in such a way where they no longer appear to be apologizing for themselves.
At the same time, I have photographed a decent amount of people who come to me with the exact intention to dismantle this paradigm.
People need to be able to trust me, I need to be able to trust me. I need to embody a certain degree of gumption in the moment because who likes working with a chicken who is running around with their head cut off? Self-deprecation does not serve the moment. But it’s vulnerable to walk into a space and claim that I know exactly what it is that I’m doing—and that I can do it well—because then I have to prove it.
Who benefits when I play small? When I forget what I’ve been called to do?