How do you like my new style? I love the red and teal! Amy does such a good job and she's fast!
A long time ago, I downloaded Stumble!. I forget I have it though so I usually go a few weeks at a time without using it. Then, I'll spend an entire Sunday evening stumbling my way through the internet. In fact, when I remember to use it, I love it. I had to create a new folder in my favorites just for sites I found while stumbling. It's just this bulky folder that has a down arrow button because there are so many sites bookmarked there. Every now and then, I'll just spend time stumbling through my saved stumbles folder. Have you ever noticed how the word stumble starts to look weird after you see it written so many times? Anyway, there are a lot of sites in there that I want to share with you and I thought I'd start with Bobby Neal Adams.
Bobby Neal Adams is a photographer. An artist. And I stumbled upon his site a long time ago and his work moved me. All of his work is amazing, but I was particularly drawn to the Age Maps. I cannot stop going back there and looking at those images. In his words an age map is, "Two photographs of the same person, from different periods of time (child and adult) are spliced together. In this fusion a jump-of-time is established at the tear."
I wanted to see what my jump-of-time looks like. So, I decided to try it out.
Here's where things veer off the story for a moment.
I thought trying this project would just be a fun thing to do. And then I pulled out my elementary school pictures. While I was trying to decide on which picture would be a good size to match up with one of me today, I noticed something that I had not thought of in a long, long time. I settled in on one picture in particular and looking at that face, staring back up at me, I saw a child there and I remembered exactly what that age felt like for me.
1984
The girl in that picture is 10 years old and in 4th grade. She was on the PomPom squad but she had to drop out of it because she couldn't get her math grade up to a C. The boy whom she had loved for the last three years laughed at her inability to excel at times tables. This is the year that she will get her school pictures back and for the first time in her young life, she will say to herself that she is ugly. She will hate her haircut and the gap in her teeth. She will wish her mother had not dressed her in that ugly white lace collar. She will wish her mother would either go to cosmetology school or start hiring someone professional to cut her hair. She will wish that she looked like someone else.
Looking at the picture tonight was emotional for me because I saw myself detached from it for the first time ever. I wanted to hug the girl in the picture. I felt like I was looking at someone else's child. I don't know, it's hard to explain. But I ended up crying about it and while I don't want to make this story anymore soul-baring than it already is (too late, I know), I did want to document these thoughts for myself. I'm on a self-discovery kick, ya know.
Anyway, I enjoyed doing this. It was fun and made me think about myself and who I am now and who I want to be.
I can't decide if I'm impressed or freaked out with my results. Mine look nothing like Bobby Neal Adams'. I almost look like a chucky doll. No matter, the woman on the right is me and I am 31 years old. The gap in my teeth is gone -- closed up on its own with a little time and thankfully, I never needed braces. I have a great hairstylist and although I still find many things about my looks that I don't like, I'm learning to love all of me a little at a time.
Submitted to Self-portrait Challenge - May 2006
Self-Made Man 