The Audience in My Head
On a set for Dior, there are fifteen people behind me. A client watching from a monitor. Stylists adjusting fabric between frames. Someone keeping track of time. I notice that I am not only looking at the subject in front of me. I am also aware of the room looking at me.
It is subtle. I still do my work. I still make decisions. But something shifts. I am not just making images. I am also showing that I am making images. There is a performance layered into the process, and it feels so natural that I almost do not notice it.
On my own set, with no one around, the experience is different. There is no room to perform for. There is only the frame, the light, and whatever is unfolding in front of me. My attention moves differently. It stays closer. It does not bounce between what I see and how I might be seen.
I do not think the images suffer on a larger set. The work still holds. But the space inside my head is different. And over time, I have started to pay attention to that difference.
There is a distinction between self-awareness and self-consciousness that I think about often. They sound similar. They are not.
Self-awareness means noticing what is happening inside you while you work. Doubt showing up. Ambition pulling you forward. Fear slowing you down. Intuition pointing somewhere you did not plan to go. You observe these things without correcting them. You let them be. And from that openness, work can emerge that is honest, because it does not need to prove anything. It is allowed to simply exist.
Self-consciousness is different. It places an audience inside your mind before anyone has seen the work. You feel watched while you are still in the act of making. The focus shifts from what you are exploring to how it might be received. You start editing yourself too early. Not because the direction is wrong, but because it might be misunderstood. The work becomes a reaction instead of an action.
What follows is a deeper, more personal reflection on both states and what they ask of you as a maker. This section is available to paid subscribers.
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