PERSONAL PROJECTS

THROUGH THE LENS OF FEAR 

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A few years ago, while studying photography during the pandemic and simultaneously experiencing a midlife crisis, I began a photography project to confront a shadow of fears that had unexpectedly come to keep me company. This project became a way to face those ghosts that were shaping my existence—accepting them, or at least trying to, by looking them in the eyes. I named them and created an image, one that wouldn’t feel scary, but that would also allow me to laugh at them.

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These fears had drifted into my life like dark clouds, lingering as anxiety, keeping me from fully living, feeling, simply being. They clung to me like a second skin, a shadow always at my side. And from that time, and now, as I move further from life’s spring, they tend to press closer, whispering of fragility, of dreams abandoned, of goals still far off—some perhaps forever out of reach. The clock ticks, the music fades, and past moments weigh against a future no longer glowing with the bright promise it once held in my youth.

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This project became an exercise in introspection and learning, of growth and acceptance, with the clear aim of being able to meet life as it is: to embrace pain as I do joy, and to feel, be, and exist without restraint. So, I picked up my camera and created a series of self-portraits, dressed as a mime—mocking myself, standing with sticky and uncomfortable makeup, laughing at these shadows. They will always be there, sometimes more present than others, but I continue to work on accepting them as part of the journey, striving to break the chains that tether me, and to walk my path—unbound.