My web developer (Rebecca) has been masterfully assisting me in developing a new professional and public identity via yinyangvision.com. While working on the finishing touches for that site, she asked me to provide a few photos of myself. The images were needed that day. However, the moment she requested those photos, I felt as though an alarm went off. I was flooded with self-consciousness. A voice in my head was asking questions like: ‘who am I, anyways?’ And, ‘who am I now?’ I scrambled to look for photos on my hard drives and quickly came to the realization that I didn’t have a single current photo of myself. Not one. All of my photo albums are irretrievably imprisoned on a dead G4 Macintosh. Worse, my digital camera is broken. And even worse, my hair looked like crap that day. I felt profound blockage. Yet that sensation, although heavy, was very short-lived because something shifted in me. I realized that all those photos represented my previous identity, and that if I was to forge a new identity I needed photos that were current. I swung into action. I got out our old Sony camcorder, took it outside where it was snowing, placed it on a post, and in a quick series of movements, captured myself on digital video. I brought the footage into I-movie, slowed it down until I saw images of myself where I felt some recognition and ease, then I captured still frames of those images. Before the day was out I sent them off to be placed by Rebecca onto the website. I moved from blockage into action, the old me into the new me.
Posts
