[Reposted from my Apple Journal, Monday January 26th, 2026 at 7:30 a.m.]
I genuinely believe that anyone whose medium is photography, and they take self-portraits, all of their work, including photos of other people is still a self-portrait.
As an artist myself whose primary medium is the camera, I can attest that all of my work is about me, even when I am not clearly pictured. My initial exhibition theme was around my abstract works allowing me access to a wider range of venues and opportunities. But I was always more than that, and along the way my core work had always been self portraiture. A large part of this was related to my body dysmorphia, and always thinking that what I felt I looked like and how I actually looked were incongruent. I mean its a bit more than that, its literally a psychological diagnosis, so who was I to think that I could conquer it by forcing my mind to see the reality of my appearance.
Presumptuous to say the least, but that is what artist are, we are self-centered individuals usually trying to figure something out about ourselves and how we fit into the world. Even when we shift our lens to others, we are still trying to figure out who we are. This colors the work we capture of others because we resort to the same themes and explorations over and over again. Even Mapplethorpe, who I look at as a great inspiration, when I look at his work I continually just see him. Even in the cock of some anonymous Black man, I still see him reflected there within.
I myself have had a handful of models I have shot, and it's the same thing, I may be pointing the camera at them but I am capturing myself. The first one who comes to mind is Adele, who was going by Adam when I shot her. Adele clearly embodied my own two-spirited nature, even the algorithm on Tumblr thinks she was a woman, when she was still clearly in her male body. That was a conflict I always had believing myself to be someone that I wasn't, I was never a man or a boy, I obviously wasn't a girl either, I always sort of floated in the liminal space between those things. My identity wasn't monochromatic it had a dual nature that would morph depending on the time of day, my mood and the situation.
When I finally accepted that I was a transgendered non-binary person everything clicked together. Just like it did for Adele. What I love about my shoot of her is, I am respecting her in the way she deserved, which is what makes her shoot so timely even with her transition because I captured who she really was, no amount of surgeries or hormones could change that. In doing so I came to my own resolutions about myself and how I embodied my own identities and moved through the world with them.
This is what I mean, it's all a self-portrait. I could photograph my nieces, niblings and nephews, and all I am doing is showing parts of myself, parts I lost, parts I tried to recapture, and parts I cherished. It all ends up being me. My camera isn't on me as much as it used to be, but when I do point it at myself, I am still attempting to figure out am I the same person I was, and who will I be next?
[Reposted from my Apple Journal, Thursday December 11th at 08:57 am]
I was watching a funeral on Six Feet Under, and one of the characters eulogized his dad using three photos that he described to the guest but never showed them. There was something so personal and intimate about it, and it made me want to choose three photos from my own life that were meaningful to me in different ways, and do the same.
The first would be the one photo I have of my mom and me, curiously I hadn't even been here too long, easily which places the photo in nineteen seventy-three. The location I am sure is in my paternal grandparent home which means that my dad is off-screen somewhere, possibly the person taking the photo, which would mean this is the closest thing I have to a family portrait. My t-shirt says Soul Brother, I know this because on this same day I met my great grandmother and uncle. Wow, I never really thought about it before but this is really a family affair, much more so than I had ever really considered previously.
Visible are my mom and me, present are my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother, my uncle and my great grandmother. That is a lot of love that I seem oblivious of, even now I didn't realize that I did start out with a lot of folks around me, but like an unwelcome STI, I am still here and the rest of them are long dead. It is the hardest thing about living, when others die, you're still there, breathing and carrying on. Without realizing it I have placed this photo exactly where it should be as a keen reminder of a life well-lived, or the beginning of that journey.
The next image is of me and my half-step sister Mary at Bear Mountain state park, well the park is a guess, all I know for sure is they had an outdoor public pool, and it was the only one on the list that seemed familiar that the AI pulled up for me. What I love about this image is it so accurately captures my essence before I was corrupted by life. I look mischievous, yet innocent, or trying to look innocent. Mooch is holding the bag of Cheeze Doodles away from me for a clear reason.
A casual viewer would assume that we are brother and sister, or maybe cousins, something I would never dissuade them from, because I adored Mooch, I looked up to her, not just because she was taller than me, because she was a few years older, and seemed to have the answers I didn't know I needed. I did have an older brother, with a decade of age-difference, well for a few more years before he vanished forever, but an older sibling was a rare feeling for me since I was the oldest of my mom's second set of children. I was usually the one being looked to, with no where to look myself. She provided that brief possibility of what it was to be older and cooler. I did the same thing to her that I hated in my younger siblings, I followed her around always wanting to witness what she was doing, because there had to be value in anything that she deemed worthy.
This is also around the age my sexual abuse started, which was the ending of my childhood, and would cause ripples decades later. It's also an image that dissuades me from the belief that I was a husky child, I am quite normal-sized, possibly even skinny. I can remember not being very comfortable with being shirtless at this age, but I think my dad had encouraged me to take off my shirt. I am still feeling awkward because being shirtless in public wasn't something I did regularly or was remotely comfortable with.
Me and my sister having a playful moment on film was very meaningful to me. Albeit some of my worst childhood physical abuse would happen by the hand of her mother, including my first threats of bodily harm by an adult, I still think of my time with Mary quite fondly. She would later deny even knowing me, regardless of the photographic proof. But that is what I loved about this photo, it proved that someone was making an attempt to make a family no matter how blended, and that honor is given to my dad who probably took the photo.
The last photo is by me, and for me. Wearing a suit whose design was also worn by Melvin Van Peebles, I feel I look the best I ever have here, in my full glam for a benefit that I was attending in which I had donated a piece of artwork. I am slim, my hair is done, nice glasses and even the shoes are great, a pair I had purchased on a trip to Peru. It is the realization of the dream, any dream really. It was me at my best, looking my best and feeling my best. It is the way I would want to be remembered, as beautiful, glamorous and stylish.
Albeit I think my artistic career was waning at this point, as was my general one, I put on my best face for the former co-worker who invited me to participate in the auction. I was pleased the piece sold and the monies went to a good cause, Brooklyn children. It was a piece left over from my one night solo exhibition at Soho House sponsored by Bombay Sapphire, so there were a lot of really positive things coming together for me that are captured in this photo.
I have stated repeatedly that I looked best in my forties, and this was just the beginning of them back in the mid tens. I think I just felt most comfortable in my body during this time. I was also doing something I had never dreamed of, being an artist in New York City. I think right after this benefit I would be going to Art Basel in Miami for the first time. That suit had served as a pivotal outfit for three events that would help to elevate my career as a working artist. The first was the one-night only solo exhibition, then this high profile benefit for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, then off to Miami to meet Russell Simmons at Art Basel, way before his reputation was tarnished by his past misdeeds.
The image denotes my past, my present and my future in a way that comes together brilliantly. I have never in my life worn a tuxedo or been to a formal affair and this was my closest thing to that, I think I showed up, and showed out in the most elegant way possible, and for me its one of the prouder moments in my mid-adulthood. The fact that this was a self-portrait makes it all so much more meaningful, because I was the one directing and guiding my life, and the one to benefit from any successes or failures.
When looking back at my life, I want to see things with clear eyes wide open, noting and acknowledging the good and bad equally, because both parts are what makes up a person, and a life. All three of these images say I was here, I did my best, did my work, and then moved on as we all do, not a legacy to be ashamed of. The three images also capture transition, one clearly capturing the era of when I still had close family, one documenting a loss that I wouldn't fully understand and grasp until much later in life, and the last the fruition of all my work, ambition and attempts to make a better life for myself, than my parents had for themselves. These are portraits of a life well-lived, well at least to the best of my ability. I can look at all of these photos and honestly say I haven't any regrets at all, not one.
Now, I am not the power user Leon is, utilizing the app for so many different purposes, but I have clocked a lot more words than he has. Point of clarity on a few things, I don't have a strong hand, so I prefer to type my entries.
Even before the onset of the digital world I preferred to type my writing than hand-write. There was something about seeing it on the screen that made all the difference for me. This started with my zine back in the early nineties and continued onto each and every computer I had. I have always written by typing.
Secondly, curiously I have never searched for a previous entry once. My process is, if I start something as a Journal entry that I think I want to turn into an essay, I just copy and paste it into another of Apple's iWork programs Pages. Then in Pages I format a bit more, add any additional images and usually use iOs to read back what I have written. When Journaling I never usually read-back anything because it isn't being published, so there's no need, it can stay as it is typos and all.
Lastly, my tablet is my only device, I don't have their watch or a current laptop and never owned a mobile phone, so syncing isn't attractive to me at all because I am doing it all on my iPad Pro. I think Leon's and my work-flow is different, I am in a pre-retired phase, so there is no work to think about. I am also not a content creator, so no YouTube ideas, just an artist dibbling and dabbling way past my mid career.
I have more notes for Apple on the general interface. I loved Leon's suggestions, those would be great. But I just want the app to feel as stable as Pages, right now simple editing feels very shaky and adding inline graphics or video is so tricky. I just had like a few days of that not working at all, which frustrated me. As a visual artist I love to include imagery in my entries so when the ability to do so is malfunctioning, I am clearly not having a good day. I just wish they started at Pages and then re-arranged appropriately for a Journal app.
Personally I also want something like what Photos does, featured entries or some other dynamically generated content that brings you back to past entries. I know the audience is just one person, but it would be nice to be reminded of something you talked about or a even some themes in the entries.
Curiously I got my nephew to start using the app and move from just voice recordings to typing entries. I was so pleased by this because even though I have done some voice note entries I think there is something different about relaying your thoughts through typing, and clearly I am a bit biased.
Generally speaking I think Journaling is a wonderful way for any and everyone to get those intrusive thoughts out of your head and somewhere else. As I told a girlfriend, it doesn't matter if you do them in audio, video or writing, I have done all of the above. I think the best thing is just the process of getting things off your spirit and letting them take up space somewhere other than your brain.
