I did not pick up a camera to find myself. I picked it up because I wanted to make interesting pictures. The self-discovery part arrived uninvited, through a side door, about two years in.
What happened was this: I started noticing patterns in the work. I kept photographing the same kinds of faces — people on the edges of crowds, watching rather than participating. I kept returning to particular qualities of light. I kept avoiding certain subjects even when they were right in front of me. The camera was showing me things about myself that I had not known to look for.
On choosing your subjects: What you photograph tells you what you value, fear, or find beautiful. Keep a folder of your hundred most-returned-to images and look at them as a collection. The pattern will surprise you.
On self-portraiture: Taking a self-portrait is uncomfortable in a useful way. Most of us are much better at seeing others than we are at seeing ourselves. The discomfort of turning the camera around is worth pushing through. You do not need to share the results.
On slowing down: Macro photography — working close, at scale, with shallow depth of field — forces a quality of attention that transfers to every other kind of photography. If you can spend twenty minutes photographing one flower, you can spend twenty minutes with any subject.
On documentary work: Photographing real events, real people, and real situations pulls you out of your own head and into contact with the world. It is harder to be self-absorbed when you are paying close attention to someone else’s story.
On the photographs you avoid: I spent two years not photographing the suburb where I grew up. When I finally went back with a camera, I understood something about myself that had been sitting there unexamined. The avoidance itself was information.
Photography is not therapy, and I am not suggesting it should replace it. But it is a discipline of attention — and attention, turned inward with honesty, is one of the oldest tools for understanding who you are.