Broken mirrors

There have been moments in recent times when I have had the feeling that my photography is repeating itself over and over again.

Year after year, I have tried to develop my own style, a picture that only I see and make. I wanted to bring out the details, the grooves of a fingerprint, the subtle nuances that make up a person. A smile that is a little bit different from all the others, a moment that only exists in that one second. I wanted to capture these small, almost invisible things that no one else sees.

But the more I got to grips with my work, the more I realized that if you don't really look, all these details are not particularly noticeable. Especially in the world of social media, where so much is perceived quickly and superficially, fingerprints are often barely distinguishable from one another. A picture is scanned in seconds, and it's quickly gone. You see the fingerprint, but you don't recognize the nuances that make it unique.

I wanted to break away from this comparability. I wanted to create something that wasn't just another photo in the mass of images. Something that stands out, that looks different, that shows more of me and my view of the world. I wanted to find a style that carried more of my own personality, more of my "self". It was clear that I had to change something to achieve this goal. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I realized that I needed a reset for this step. Too many habits, too many elements - whether it was the way I used light or the way I worked with my models - had to change. A lot of what I had built up over the years suddenly no longer felt right. I didn't want to just carry on as before. It was as if I had to take apart everything I had known and put it back together from scratch.

In this process of rethinking and reflecting, a thought finally occurred to me that took away all the confusion: "My photography is like a broken mirror." What's more: "I myself am like a broken mirror".

For a long time, I had been looking for a clear picture, a method that would allow me to capture the "true" character of a person. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's not about catching the perfect moment, but about collecting the fragments of a person and rearranging them again and again. Every time I print, I put these pieces together in a new way, depending on what I see in the person in front of me. The cracks, the edges, the small imperfections - they are all part of it. Together, these fragments create an image that is as individual as the moment I press the shutter release.

These parts are not always clear. Some are dull and almost invisible, others are sharp and precise. But together - in each individual shoot - they form a kaleidoscope that reflects the image of the person that I see at that moment. It is not the image she has of herself, but the image I discover in her.

I know that not everyone I photograph will recognize themselves in this picture. Some may see themselves distorted or differently than they perceive themselves. That is part of it. It's the fracture that reveals the true essence - the cracks and shards that make up the person. Because in the end, each of us is a broken mirror, imperfect and often different from how we see ourselves. It is this fracture that makes us interesting, that distinguishes us as human beings.

I also asked myself why I photograph with so much dedication when I know that most people will never see my work. Even if I have tens of thousands of followers on social media, the majority of my images won't get the attention of X amount of "non-followers". But somehow that doesn't matter to me. The actual act of photographing, collecting these fragments, is the way I understand the world, people, and myself better. Through the camera, I find a clarity that I don't always have in other aspects of my life.

Ultimately, no one I photograph will ever know how I see him (or her). No one will understand why I captured this moment and not another. But that's okay. Because even when we see ourselves, we only see a part of ourselves - never the whole picture. And in the same way, the picture I take of them will never completely match the picture they have of themselves. The image they see is only ever a part of the whole - the rest remains hidden in the broken mirror.