Pictures and Polaroids

Instagram post by Michelle Porter * Jan 23, 2017 at 7:57am UTC

Suffering through depression and anxiety can be a lonely battle. We seem to turn to the wrong things in an attempt to cope with this pain, however this piece offers a new addiction to contend with self-harm, smoking, alcohol/drug use: photography.

     The only iris that I can maintain eye contact with for longer than five seconds, a still focus, blurring out the peripheral psychosis.
     A grey filter is put in front of my own eyes but this feels like a double bluff, somehow the colours come back, and mingle in a non-confrontational, non-intimidating way.
     There is beauty in the blur of hazy memories, when my mind slipped out of its comfortably miserable state and into one which was unnaturally, pretentiously (temporarily) happy, and the slight jolt of my staggering steps in heels higher than my mood - but just as pressurized as I let the focus loose... well itself. Let the focus lose focus. It helped me piece together the jigsaw of the night before.
     In other moments, it shelters me, as if a moment is too precious to be a real presence. Moments are fleeting and my reaching for the lens is the catalyst. I capture the purity yet I crumple the sheet simultaneously.
     The bright, loud scene becomes muffled, becomes manageable. She is my sunglasses, my parasol. There for security and protection. She cannot be rushed, cannot be forced. She is spontaneous. She is a majestic creature whom only a handful of people get to tame.
     She truly lets me see the beauty in the life that I live, even in its darkness, its minimalism, and its realism.
     Knowing that I have captured beauty in the lowest times gives me the most subtle kick of adrenaline. It sends a flash in the abyss which wakes up my whole body, and leaves it dim, but with direction.
     We keep each other charged, we both wear out quickly.
     We persist despite approaching full capacity.
     A barrier between me and the world, or an entrance to my own world; see through my eyes, or into my mind.