This started as a personal challenge using weekly awareness and self-portraits, but I have steered this project all over the place since I began directing it. Myesha made many images of herself that first year, and with my stewardship I attempted to keep the same premise. That was a mistake, but a good one. Clearly we are different people, and I shouldn’t have had any expectations about what this would be. I learned that lesson quickly.

In spite of my divergence, I still often think of this as a platform for reflection, and between the poetry and documenting of the family state, I do enjoy checking to see what I look like.

Please don't put me in your moody-ass picture.

Yet, for me this project has never really been about self-portraits. I do not like looking at myself. I never have, although over the years my reaction to seeing my own face has changed. My first memories in the mirror are of thinking about my hair in our tiny bathroom in Thibodaux. I was comparing its length to my friends’ short hair and remembering all the times my mom cut my ears when trimming it. Then I was eight, and already self-conscious about being poor. Now at forty-eight all I see is age, and I’m not really thrilled with the reflection.

Maybe it’s a symptom of an insecurity I should work on, but my face has always made me uncomfortable. Originally that’s why originally I wanted to focus on it, in an attempt to grow out of my poor habits. But today I’m looking for something different. Over the years my self-portraits have changed in appearance, and although the face in them hasn’t so much, the images themselves have. It is really their evolution that I’m monitoring now — just to keep track of the aesthetic.

That’s because I still don’t like looking at myself. Not sure what that means yet, but I’ll keep shooting despite the awkwardness and hopefully find out.