The Other Side:
Prelude
This idea started with a happy accident when I was playing around in Photoshop, aiming to improve my techniques with selections, masks, strokes etc. by creating an outline around the subject of a cyanotype print.
I moved the outline-layer by mistake, with the result that the subject and the outline got disconnected – and that’s the happy accident below.
A Happy Accident
Suddenly it all felt personal – autobiographical – a representation of me, with the inside disconnected from the outside. Knowing that the version of me that people see on the outside (the grey-haired, 70‑year‑old in a wheelchair) is so very, very different from the ‘real’ versions of me – particularly the way I feel inside – the photographer-me and all the other versions!
From then on, my mind was abuzz with ideas – different ways of representing this duality – my focus absorbed and introspective at first. And then it widened, aware that this dichotomy is true for so many people. That there are multiple versions of us all – some positive and outgoing, some damaged and private.