After discussing a possible direction for A3 with my tutor and being encouraged to show a side of myself that people might not know, I went back to the drawing board.
I have to admit that it took some time to identify a new path. To my mind, it is a fairly rare thing for someone in middle age to reveal something new about themselves. Family, friends and colleagues have had years to get know me and the chance to surprise them becomes less likely the more time goes by. Nevertheless, it dawned on me that there might be one thing about me that would surprise people: my terrible fear of dancing. I have a reputation for being a competent, confident person who remains calm under pressure and thinks well on his feet. I am not shy: I am comfortable leading large teams, teaching adults and speaking in front of hundreds of people. And I absolutely love music and I feel its power—when I’m by myself. But ask me to put music and movement together in front of other people and I turn white with cold fear.
So that would be it. But I wanted to do it on my own terms: rather than making a self-portrait just about fear, I would do a series on where I could get to. I’ve been ashamed of this long enough and resent both the way I have allowed it to make me feel and the fun I’ve missed out on.
I decided to do a series of me dancing and even looking a bit silly as I enjoyed music on my iPod. I would incorporate colour and use flash to freeze my movement. I darkened the room so that the flash would be the only light and give me greater control, both of the exposures I want to use and to strengthen the effect of the gels on the flash. I had originally thought of using a single exposure or perhaps of blending a number of exposures to give a greater sense of movement but, in the end, I opted to go with four exposures—one from each of the different coloured gels I had used.
Here are the contact sheets from the series I took: