My Coming Out Story Told Through Self-Portraits Taken In Iceland And The Pacific Northwest

Over the course of the last two years following my personal coming out experience, I created a series of images to portray the deep emotions I felt while coping with my newly discovered sense of identity.

At first it felt like I was isolated in a vast and unforgiving world but I quickly realized being true to the core is the most freeing thing I can do to start truly witnessing beauty. I want to share my story with others to help them realize that all our unique identities are valid, important, and worthy of affection and acceptance in the world. When we are truer to ourselves, we become truer and closer to others and the world doesn’t seem so isolated anymore.

I have discovered how to love myself and I look forward to creating a second series once I discover what it means to embrace love more fully.

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The Climb

The climb will never stop but the destinations along the way are glorious. We will toil but it will shape us into something beautiful.

Clarity

Like a foggy curtain drifting aside, a clarity began to sink into my troubled veins; the weight of sadness, confusion and longing began to wash away and were replaced with something subtle, but different. Green returned to the grass and water flowed like a sensation down my back from the collective dew dropping from the sky. It was a cold feeling, but a welcome one. I no longer had to be alone.

Absolution

There is a compelling moment that occurs when you finally accept forgiveness. A sense of acceptance of your existence occurs; you may be alone or you may not but everything negative seems to wash away. All at once the world seems hewn in perfect strokes of color like a masterful painting. It is in that moment when you are truly ready to move forward.

Semblance

Semblance; The outward appearance or apparent form of something, especially when the reality is different.

The Encounter

Sometimes the growth comes quicker than we can handle and causes pain and shock, however all change is an opportunity to learn and become better. Nothing in life has to be a waste, we hold the power to determine the outcome of each transition we face.

Suspended

Cleanse

We are creatures of adaption and our trials only make us stronger to face the oncoming waves. We are strong, we are brave, we are capable of things we can’t even dream.

Resolve

Like a change in the season we enter different stages of life. Sometimes it comes expectedly yet sometimes its a bit more sudden. There is no formula, no exact date set in a stone, these things just tend to occur, as natural yet unsettling as the first drop of rain from a storm. In and out of love I have fallen, away from homely spaces I have gone, up and over mountains I have traveled- each experience changing me in some steady but intangible way. When I set foot somewhere familiar at last, my shadow seems different, changed. Will I dissipate from the reaction or will I battle on, claiming my identity with pride and resolve?

Lies

The journey continues on; through dark and light, we must climb one step at a time through safe passage and obstacle alike.

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