Both Sides of the Camera

Sunday went to learning how to photograph myself with the D5 on the tripod. Focus through that lens is merciless compared to the forgiving smear of a phone. The first thirty frames were of a woman half out of the rectangle or half out of focus, a shoulder sharp and a face dissolving, or the reverse.

I marked my spot on the rug with a dark sock and walked the path from camera to pose until the floorboards knew it by heart. Ten times back and forth. Twenty. The cable release became a small metronome in my palm.

Somewhere in the middle I took a mirror shot with the D5 in my hands, the black body held at sternum height, the reflection admitting the whole apparatus: woman, machine, the slight lean of concentration. The scuffs at the corners showed. So did the cardigan elbow. I kept that frame even though it was not elegant.

I have spent years with women whose images were taken from them, by state photographers, for files that outlived the rooms they stood in. Learning to make my own image, alone, on my terms, feels like a small correction to that history. Not a reversal. A quiet insistence. When the light shifted I stopped, put the sock back in the laundry, and let the files sit unmarked until evening.