On the Road to the Black Sea

With minimal self-awareness, I put myself in many of my photographs. I now appreciate that doing so produced visual evidence of where I had been and, to the extent that any medium can, confirmed my existence. At age sixteen, I was traumatized by a sexual predator. Incapable of processing the subsequent negative affect on my development, I consigned the experience to the primitive recesses of my brain. For twenty-six-years the pain festered in darkness. Alcohol became a coping mechanism. My condition was made worse by spending years living a nomadic existence. Ultimately, Denver, Colorado became my base, however, tents and motel rooms were my home. Unexpectedly, self-portraits portraying my relationship with alcohol and isolation began to appear in my family album, to reveal a more complex personal history. I hit rock bottom while working in northeast Turkey. The day after making the last self-portrait in this series, at the Black Sea, I visited three psychiatrists. The following day I left Turkey and embarked on a healing journey. Photography, love, and antidepressants were my saviors.