Portrait of an Illness

To be a photographer, for me, means to capture moments that are not always beautiful, but to create from here and now.

To capture life as it is, or isn't─we decide how honest we want our photographs to be.

I think what we create should be honest. And these photos are as honest as it gets without having the intent, at the time that they were taken, to capture illness. Had that been the intent, you would instead see the nights in bed, wide awake at 4 a.m., endless days stuck indoors (pre-quarantine), and the litany of pill bottles and treatments strewn all over the counter, coffee table, and night stand. This is honest in a more subtle way; a whisper, if you will—only the person in the photographs truly knows the story lived behind them. The photos themselves depict a certain bleakness and loneliness; they reflect deeply the time period and the feelings within it. But they depict something else entirely, which is why I felt compelled to put them in a place where they could all exist together: tenderness, a drive to still create, and a quiet desperation to continue on. These images speak to this experience in a way that I don't yet have words for.

I am now past the worst of this illness, which is why my mind now wanders to where I have been. Four years of illness, and one year after these photos were taken, I still don't have the right words, though one day I will share them. For now, the images say more than I am able to. The photos I take are reflections of time periods in my life; they are how I document seasons and change. In some sense, every photo I post is private. But photographs are meant to be seen. It feels like the right time to shed light on this part of my life.

Thanks for stopping by.

─K