december 25, 2016 (!)
I finally found an old shot worth a damn. This was my first Christmas I ever got to choose what I wanted to do with my morning, because it was the first Christmas I'd woken up somewhere other than my parents' house. I was 21 years old. After 20 years of homeschooling, then commuting to college, I finally had my first apartment and the free will that goes with it.
I had only gotten my D750 maybe a year earlier. All I wanted was to shoot something other than "car photos", so I got myself up early on Christmas morning to do a photo walk around the city of Cleveland. I wanted to shoot the completely empty streets, a theme I'd continue for the rest of my life (clearly). Interestingly, this was my first attempt at a themed set of photos, and I named all the pictures in the set (without a ton of thought, admittedly). This one I did originally title "nightmare", though.
It's interesting to look back at who I was when I took this photo. I was so lonely. I'd recently figured out I was probably transgender. I had just realized I was gay and started experimenting with that. I was happy I was free of my home, and I was terrified I would live and die alone; I was terrified of who I was, but I loved the moments of intimacy. Joy was scarce, and it felt like trickles of warm light in a cold, empty space; just enough to see and survive, but not enough to know how to escape.
I was nowhere near self-aware to realize any of this seven years ago when I went on that photowalk on Christmas morning. I rarely ascribe subconscious narratives to a lot of my old work (or actions), but this one shot is interesting enough that I'll allow myself to.
It took a while, but I finally found out it wasn't a nightmare.
