Self Portraiture: You win some, you lose some.

That is the phrase running through my head this evening, and this past week, when I have tried to force myself to go out and take photographs aimlessly when I do not really feel ready in my heart to.

 Although a blessing really, my Achilles heel is that the best photographs I take seem to be the ones which I don't put strenuous amounts of thought into. How incredibly annoying that is!  Of course, I think about what I am going to do when I go out and photograph, but on some occasions, I have noticed that when I try -too- hard to create an image, it just won't come easy, and it will get forever more frustrating.
I feel from my experience that when you go out photographing solo, you need to have some sort of serene mind-set or calm pace in order to achieve some wonderful imagery. My favourite self-portraits are the ones where the ideas just came to me in my sleep, and I knew exactly how I wanted the image to feel and more or less how I wanted it to look, then when I felt ready, I would go out and shoot it and feel completely relaxed and peaceful, and a real buzz from doing it.

When I take some of my worst self portraits, including my new image below, It's the cause of  trying too hard to convey a feeling when I am perhaps too overwhelmed by too many outlets of inspiration, OR I am just too run down, when I should be resting, and then end up photographing for the sake of photographing.

Today, I feel I have learned at last that only the best images occur, when you just  let the feel of the image and concept breathe and flow, and speak for itself, without too much  intervention from over-thinking or from just not feeling like you are in the right mindset. It's all about pacing it right.

 I find a photographer like myself needs to feel completely fluid in their emotions at the time of shooting in order for that to happen. A shoot will always go wrong if the heart isn't in it, or  feeling overwhelmed, because it will leak onto that photographic canvas, and some times, it really shows after.

But hey, that's okay though, because it is simply the other side of the coin to creating images where everything just falls into place and comes naturally! If everything came easy, it wouldn't be worth having, and there'd be no sense of accomplishment from that!

So in short. Today I took terrible photos of myself, when I really wasn't ready, but funnily, I'm okay with it, because I will take better photos another day, sooner than later, when my heart and shutter finger are ready to!
Emily xo