Photophobia
Self portrait series
photophobia (medical condition): an abnormal sensitivity or discomfort caused by light
i. The Origin of the Artist
many who know me know the story of how i became a photographer. it began with a concussion in 2018 that knocked me straight out of the life i’d known.
the physical wiring in my brain became torn and distorted; signals that had once been automatic started getting slowed down and lost. my brain stopped registering memories. blackouts ensued. entire chunks of time lost to… nothing. attempting to use old thought patterns now resulted in dagger-like headaches and nausea. it was like being able to think myself into a nasty hangover.
and light was the worst. it still is. bright light feels like those same daggers, hot and digging and twisting under my skull: a condition called photophobia.
interacting with the world meant fatigue; everything cost energy i no longer had.
at the time, i was in school and starting a new semester, and i had luckily already registered for one of the few photography classes on offer. between oppressively reading-heavy classes, my sole refuge became the darkroom.
it was dark. quiet. solo. a shelter from the pain and overwhelm of my now-draining world. it didn’t hurt to think— i could just operate on instinct. i could fully open my eyes in the black and feel the darkness drift into my head, curling around the ache and smoothing over the pain. a desperate reprieve.
carrying a camera around became my go-to memory crutch. at the time, i happened to be coming into my first experiences of queer community and gender discovery. with a camera on hand, i could document it without worrying that my experiences would just disappear into the void.
so photography became a means for survival. and i kept following it. it was the only thing that felt like i didn’t have to overthink, but rather just act out gut instinct. i finally discovered something that wasn’t exhausting, but instead gave me life.
my compulsion towards darkness most obviously shows up in my visual language. anywhere i go, i unconsciously strategize on how to make it darker—turning off lights, keeping my back to lamps, wearing tinted glasses or a brimmed hat. it’s become a survival instinct.
as a photographer, i employ this same gut impulse. my body knows what it wants. in my work, i minimize light, bending it to my will and shaping my subject while using as little of it as possible. i don’t overthink; it just comes naturally.
it has turned into a body of work characterized by dark voids, heavy blacks, and sparsely illuminated subjects carved into the shadows. while my references are many, my biggest inspiration by far is darkness itself.
in order to investigate and understand my own psychology as an artist, i have had to understand my neurology. they are one and the same.
i have had to examine the contours of my thought patterns, discover detours around collapsed neural pathways, and explore new methods of existing in an inflexible world. my visual language, concepts, and creative direction have all reaped the rewards of this never-ending process.
brain damage gifted me photography. and for that i am grateful.
and so now, i am creating a self-portraiture series dedicated to my traumatic brain injury. i am so thankful for this lifelong process, and to finally share my story with you all <3
iI. Labyrinth
in the first few years of living with my brain injury, everything was terrifying and overwhelming. i couldn't rely on memory.
thoughts felt sharp, physically nauseating, and just trying to function felt like drowning in overwhelm. so many of the neural pathways i'd built in my first 19 years had collapsed. the roads i knew so well were permanently closed.
i found myself disoriented in a new internal landscape: an industrial rust-decorated wasteland. an infinite factory, long forgotten. i was surrounded by 360 degrees of looming shadows, detours, and sharp corners. barbed wire climbed up idle turbines like ivy. the dizzying space creaked and groaned under the weight of darkness. would the grates i stood on collapse under me?
i was a minute figure in this colossal, uncharted space. left with blocked roads and no clear direction, i had no idea where to turn, which ladder to climb, which passageway to enter. so i simply lived in this grimy expanse for a while—cold, confused, and lost.
little did i know that while i was lost, i was also surrounded by power. machinery i didn't understand, with unusual energy waiting to be harnessed. i couldn't see the bigger picture because i was too close to the machinery. a step back would reveal the schematics in full.
a few years ago, i existed in a state of perpetual avoidance mixed with artistic longing. i stayed drunk on the transportive soundscapes of massive attack and nine inch nails. i was high on the dark visual lexicon of lady gaga, an artist whose imprint had been burned into my psyche since childhood. i was floating in and out of the catacombs of rave spaces, sustained by the deep bass of techno and granular dissociatives.
surrounded by that kind of art, my footing untethered, something began to click. i was ready to harness the labyrinthine space around me, like many of my muses had done before. so i started to knock on the walls and climb over barbed ladders, ignoring the cuts and scrapes i gathered.
navigating the space with a newfound confidence revealed an alchemical playground. somewhere to build, learn, grow, run around, discover. every corner i turn, every bridge i cross, every wall i climb—i may get drained or gashed, but creatively, i am nurtured by the nooks and crannies.
this is the texture that i've come to embrace and love within my brain. when i look inward, my creative core is this dark, gritty, generative space. it is both tiny and infinitely massive. cozy and unknowable. it's shadowy, dank, warm, rusted, threaded with yellows and reds and browns and blues and greens. organic.
as an artist today, i gather that atmosphere and inject it into everything i make. and i feed on it to power the greater self.