Full Circle

(All pics. snapped on 1/02/11)

Aight you guys...I promise that I'm nearly done belaboring the whole "One Thing Leads to Another" theme. This is the...last...entry...in what's wound up to be a seemingly eternal (for me at least) four-part series. I promise to (try and) keep this post short and sweet, cuz - I don't know about you, but I personally - am more than ready to move on to something new...and different...

By the time I took the pictures that appear in this post, more than a week had passed since my kids left my house after a delightful Christmas morning together - to embark on a tropical vacation with their dad. It was also their last day of vacation, which meant - it was my last full day to devote to self-portraiture - for the next five days, or thereabouts...and I have to say - I woke up way more excited about my children coming home, than about punctuating an already industrious and productive week by staging the complementary shoot to the first installment of this cluster of connected posts. 

This may sound far-fetched but, after a solid week of planning, posing and snapping - along with reviewing and editing hundreds of pictures of myself - I was sick to death of looking at images of my own face and body. The thought of so much as catching a glimpse of even just one more self-portrait - reminded me of something from a way long time ago, back when I was a young adult living in Richmond, Va....

It usually happened late at night, following an evening spent getting my drink on. I'd weave drive past the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on my way home, and find myself incapable of ignoring the neon announcement that at that very moment - there were "Hot Doughnuts Now". I would then do an illegal U-turn, peel pull into the parking lot, stagger saunter inside, teeter precariously on my stool sit up to the counter and order one dozen of the warm, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth-like-cotton-candy, so-sweet-they-hurt-your-teeth confections - determined to demolish every last one of 'em. 

The first few always tasted so damn good, that I greedily shoveled one after another into my salivating mouth, before even swallowing the one that was already in there. When the box was about half empty, I slowed down my pace a bit, as my tummy began to complain (although my taste buds insisted that I plod ever onward). By the time I'd get to those last couple of doughnuts though - the idea of consuming even one more tiny morsel - triggered my gag-reflex (and the threat of far worse). I always swore after devouring so many of those delectable, decadent delights - that I could never eat another Krispy Kreme "Hot Doughnut - Now" or for as long as I should ever chance to live. The cycle not surprisingly, repeated itself however, not to be broken until I finally moved away from RVA, and to a town where there are no Krispy Kreme doughnut shops to tempt me. 

And so on the morning of the second day of 2011, the acute malaise with which I was suddenly stricken, and which I directly linked to undertaking the bookend shoot necessary to bring this group of posts full circle - mirrored my sentiment towards the mere thought of gorging myself on those last coupla Krispy Kreme doughnuts...it honestly felt as if there was no way in hell that I could force myself to do such a thing...I had reached my absolute limit...

I did rally for the photo shoot though, telling myself that if I could manage to trudge through it, I'd be rewarded with a much-needed respite from self-portraiture...during which time I might focus on foolin' around with my new Holga cameras and revisit my neglected love of panorama photography. After my brief sabbatical, I hoped to reemerge as a refreshed and rejuvenated self-portraiture artist...with a few new tricks up my sleeve, perhaps. 

(First Holga pic. on the roll)

It's painfully obvious when looking at the two self-portraits in this post - that my heart was clearly "not in it" that day. I was freezing cold, my poses were inexcusably vapid, and in a rare twist of mindset - I was self-conscious about being spotted by passing motorists (and while wearing that much clothing - go figure). Despite all of that though, I drove away from the old post office at Gaylord (where this whole thing began three entries ago, mind) feeling optimistic, upbeat and astonishingly inspired. I had mustered the gumption to tackle the shoot (the dismal results were insignificant at that point) whereby bringing this story to a close - bonus. But more importantly, I had indeed added something "new" and something "different" - to my previously mono-dimensional repertoire…