The Untamed Places Presents “The Untamed Portraits” by Laura

I started doing photography about nine years ago. I bought my good friend’s Nikon and headed to Kyrgyzstan to try it out. For the next seven years I learned little by little and remained mostly a hobbyist photographer. About two years ago I started noticing how I couldn’t quite do everything I wanted with my beloved Nikon (which I still have), and so the hunt for a gently used professional DSLR started. Here, in Kyrgyzstan, the market for used stuff is a lot smaller (no Craigslist unfortunately), and personally I wasn’t sure when I could find a new camera. Just a few weeks later, I came across a post from a friend. She was advertising a camera for her friend, a professional photographer. I seized the opportunity and after going and seeing it a couple times and thinking about it, I went for it. I bought a full-frame DSLR! (No need to talk about the fact I bought a Canon).

I don’t generally stick with interests. I get passionate about (fixated on?) something, I learn it, and I move on. Photography is the only interest that has kept me hooked through the years. After much landscape photography and some experimentation with people photography (families, couples, a couple of weddings—including a fake one) I think that for the foreseeable future I have found a niche I love and that I want to grow in: conceptual self-portraiture.

Self-portraiture is pretty much a no brainier. As long as I am around, I have a subject to shoot! I am still wrestling with the fact that I may come across as conceited and full of myself, but really that isn’t the point. The point is to make us think and reflect. Sometimes about something mundane, sometimes about deeper things.

For the foreseeable future I have decided that I will present my work in the form of a triptych. A triptych is “is a work of art that is divided into three sections.” My work will consist of three photographs that complement each other in its message. I have been posting some of them already on Instagram (@the.untamed.portraits), but starting tomorrow, a triptych will be published via blog post every Monday.

I really hope you enjoy what you see but that you are also challenged by it in some way. Feel free to comment or ask any questions in the comments and definitely share around!

See you tomorrow!