It is the season to get out there and have new portraits taken of yourself . Locations and warm weather invite you to capture yourself in anew light. In  connection with portraiture and the avenues it can open for you , I’d like to relate my own experience with a recent  portraits  session and all that I discovered.

Last week I experienced something very new and different. Instead of being behind the camera, I was in front of it, not because I chose to be but because I was to be featured in a magazine story about my work as a  photographer. It seemed to me it would be adequate to just  present my images ,but there was a definite request by the interviewer to have images of me for the readers. In view of this, I organized a make- up artist on the morning of my photo session and she made some  major changes to the way I usually do my make-up. Though seemingly small, I suddenly took on a totally different look, softer, younger and somehow more vulnerable.  In any case, not my idea of  the usual „me“. Because time was running out, I accepted her expert transformation , as odd as it felt to me, and went to my photo session. It went well enough, and  afterwards, I went home to contemplate my new look. The next day I continued in the same vein, studying the new changes. The next day as well. To my surprise,my friends commented on me looking “ good“, though they could not pin point why. I now continue along this path, and can not imagine turning back. This makes me think seriously about change and letting go of the old in order to start the new. How strange it seems at the onset to change something done for years , seemingly so perfect , so normal and right, for that which appears to be foreign and wrong, only to realize the real me  had  surfaced  after being obscured for so long. I now look forward to  the process of changing  directions, of being bold about letting go of the known to discover the new. For that uncomfortable newness could likely be the real you.