So it's 2014 already. It seems 2013 was a tough year for a lot of people, judging by Facebook statuses, Tweets, Instagrams and whatever social media outlet we use to "voice" our troubles.
In a lot of ways I think having a bad year can be a good thing. It can get you focused on more important things or challenge your perceptions and get you "in line" so to speak. It's not always fun - hell it's never fun - but that's how we grow and hopefully better ourselves; through those hardships.
Not to dwell on it too much, but the last couple of months of 2013 wasn't easy for me and I think that goes for pretty much anyone. Those final 2 months before your holiday, start grinding you down mentally. Especially with myself, I've noticed that; after more than a year of working from home, I felt miserable. That's my own fault though. I have a knack for isolating myself from the world and with the holidays that were coming up and knowing that I'd probably be alone on Christmas I just felt like crap.
But lo and behold, Christmas came and I actually didn't feel completely miserable. I actually felt kinda blessed. Millions of people are alone over the holidays and I felt that I needed that to put some things in perspective for myself. I think what also helped was the fact that I got to hang out with a good friend the day before and just dump some of this "darkness" I'd been carrying in my heart.
That being said, I really wanted to create a photo for my "Arguing with Myself" series of conceptual self-portraits. And I had the perfect place in mind, knowing that I would be going to my old hometown area over Christmas and that I would be alone, so there was no excuse to not go and make this photo.
The only reason why I almost didn't do it, was because I felt too calm on the inside. There wasn't this crazy inner turbulence that I had when I made the first two, but I decided to press on and do it anyway.
This is the image. I call it "Rebirth".