Thirty Flirty Add Seven

I start building the concept for my birthday portrait the minute the previous year is complete.

🔅 January - October: I develop a general style concept and collect images through the year that define the overall aesthetic.

🔅 November - December: I refine the concept and  start planning with in detail what the portrait will look like. Mood boards are edited and any required costume pieces needed are ordered.

🔅 Jan 1 - Jan 10: I begin collecting props, supplies, special lighting and building out a shooting schedule. Then I remember how incredibly pasty I am in January and how cold it is in January and how I’m still recovering from the salty, sugary, boozy season of Christmas / NYE and how when it comes right down to it, I hate playing dress up and having my picture taken in January. Fuck January and fuck this portrait.

🌀 Jan 10 - 13: I soldier on. I usually manage to shoot before the 13th although some years have seen a mad scramble day-of. In a fit of fury I typically toss the well-refined concept and just shoot whatever. The set is always some hilarious cobbled-together studio that features a Cat-in-the-hat balancing act of equipment that enables me to shoot by myself. Sometimes I shoot 200+ photos and sometimes I nail it in 3. Sometimes I return to the well-refined concept but not without a chaotic interlude. Every year is a little unique. What is guaranteed though, is an absolute existential rollercoaster. A battle between all my faculties. A self-imposed right of passage. An annual reckoning that allows me to forge on to a new age. The portrait in the end just becomes a badge of completion.

So I’m 37 now. Hope this helps :)

Zoë