.ee
I got into telling about this photo on Facebook, then realised it's the photo from which my Twitter avatar is (was – I've changed the avatar some time after this post was first published) cropped, so – on the off chance one or two of you here will find it interesting or fun to read. Or because some might have thoughts about this, but – instead of asking – might have made their own interpretations, here goes:
We're back in the early 00's at Bellevue Beach, just north of Copenhagen and the photo was taken by a friend on one of the last frames of a role of film I had spent during a short trip to Berlin.
I took a picture of her too with her face is in the middle of the frame and with the sky as background. A pretty ordinary picture, you could say, and it was a bit of a lesson for me to see the way she composed the photo of me, and, honestly, it was a bit hard for me having to discover that my approach to photography was that primitive, but that I just had to swallow of course.
If you're wondering why I have one eye closed, then it wasn't a signal to neither the photographer nor to future admirers of the photo, it was because the sun got into the corner of that eye.
The hairstyle shows a discreet remnant of a mohawk which I had made some time earlier to take part in a carnival as a native american (mostly only wearing red paint and a loincloth which - photos later revealed - was somewhat smaller, than I had fully realised).
...I just (june 10. 2023) found the negative of a photo taken as we were leaving for the carnival, so perhaps you see what I mean :o)
At the time, the understanding of how such costumes can be perceived by - in this case - native americans - (black-facing?) had not reached Denmark, so – even if I understand and agree with that critique – for that reason and because the costume was about my fascination with native americans as a child. Or to explain better, perhaps: the invite read "Come as what you never became" and because I remember that some time during first or second grade I had my mother write in my message book that I wanted to be(come) an indian chief as my future adult profession, I thought it was so telling of where my mind was then. I also thought it would be a nice stunt, of course, but mainly it had to do with that I never since, to my recollection, had any such clear idea of what I wanted to be.
So I find myself excused and do not really think I need to torment myself for having dressed up like that (but please let me know if you disagree!).
Finally, if you look closely, you can see a small ring in my left ear. I got it around my 19th birthday (1985), and it was supposed to mark a rebellious nature, which I to some extent sought and idealised at the time. I took it out ca. late 2013, because I thought I was too insecure about myself for that signal to make sense. Also; I was somewhat tired of having to deal with the different perceptions others had of what the ring meant.
As things are right now it feels right to not wear the ring but whether some time in the future it returns, I can't say.
So, quite a bit underneath, and – as you now know – the photo I used for my avatar was some 10 years old when I started using it. It wasn't that I wanted to deceive, but I didn't have a more resent photo, that I wanted to use, so instead I turned the photo to greyscale and cropped it heavily. This was – as mentioned – to avoid giving a wrong impression, but it can be argued, of course, that some private information about me that lies in not having a more resent usable photo was omitted and that this would have been relevant to some. I can only agree.
the avatar that I used from around 2011, I think, and stopped using at some point during 2023.
