Part Two

Yet this yellow was different.
Where the other colors had become my vision, integrating with the objects in my life, and altering what I saw and how I saw it, pale yellow was a wall, a blindfold, a prison of which I was not aware. I was kept there from march until october, not seeing, just being. Yet I was content and did not see what I was missing. I had lost my vision in trying to be what I was not.

And so, in November, I started getting rid of the yellow, scraping it and peeling until my eyes were clear again. But for a while, if was uncomfortable to see so clearly. I wasn't sure if my images really were as good as they were. I was redefining myself after all, becoming a solo photographer instead of a student- drawing lines where only shading had been before.

And in the midst of this- on an early January evening, my vision became a clear pale blue. And I saw myself at fourteen again.

To photograph is to look back and place what you've gathered from years and years in your frames. Its something I've only begun to see now- to grab the hand of all that has happened to me, and let it become facets of who I am and what i see so there is a reason for all that I photograph. I remember what it is like to stand face to the wall at the ballet barre- waiting impatiently for my teacher to arrive and come fix my feet position. I reopen boxes of times climbing tress as i gaze at people in the trees above me, happy as I have been dozens of times. I no longer deny who I have been, or turn my back on the colors that i have held in my hands and in my eyes.