Other side of the lens

One day I was thinking about how I take photos of my friends and that I have no one to take any flattering ones of me. I felt really down about it too, like no one wants a picture of me, to remember me. I don't want to be invisible, most importantly to myself.  So you know what I did?  I threw some money at the problem!

I had connected with a local photographer through the sale of my zine (A Love Letter to Kansas) and I liked her style of portraiture.  She offered very reasonably priced short sessions on her Instagram story I spotted so I booked my session. 

We met up at the Wichita Art Museum and strolled the grounds and snapped my photo.  I know myself well, impatient and a bit controlling, I knew I'd have a hard time waiting for the photos to come so I asked that she shoot a roll of Konica VX400 Monochrome I brought and I would send it off to the lab myself.  She obliged and those are the photos you see on this post.  I did get the instant photos she shot in the mail not long after the session but as of this blog post, I don't have the others. That's fine, I have these and I really like them. 

Of course when I look at pictures of myself, there are things I don't like but those do not outnumber the things I like. She did a very nice job of capturing the moments.  I did feel like I could have used more direction.  I felt like I was doing the same things over and over.  Maybe she's more accustomed to working with models and they can go through a variety of poses without much prompting. I don't know I'm merely speculating. Overall I'm counting it as a win. Check out Mary Kate O'Brien, @obrienartistry on Instagram.