feelings – Bunny Luna

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CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

Hi friends! Welcome to another week of me making a vlog. Today I want to talk about how self-portraiture connects me to myself.

I first started taking self-portraits in…. I actually don’t know what year because it’s been a very long time. I started seriously taking self-portraits, like for specific art purposes in maybe 2010? but I was definitely taking self-portraits way before that, maybe since I was like 14 or 15, but I didn’t start taking nude ones until I was 18 and older for obvious reasons.

I learned quickly that self-portraiture helps me feel more into my body and feel more connected to my emotions and myself, and part of that is because I feel like I’m more able to release all of everything else like societal bullshit and just be myself when I’m in front of a camera and it’s just me that’s taking the photos.

It’s very different when I’m posing for someone else taking photos, because I feel more like, “oh, I need to take pictures that they will be happy with” but when it’s self portraits, I can do whatever I want because it’s me taking the photos. So it’s whatever I’m feeling and if I like them, I can share them. But if I don’t have to, and there’s no pressure of like, “oh I have this expectation from someone else”.

So because I don’t have the limitations of someone else’s ideas of what they would like in these photos, I’m able to really connect with “Okay, how am I feeling today, in this moment? And how would I like to portray that in these images?” And sometimes I just take photos, and I never share them. And it’s just so that I can get emotions out, because sometimes I feel like it’s hard for me to just, like, sit in my emotions if I don’t have something that I’m doing to allow me to move through them, if that makes sense.

I think it’s kind of hard to just be like, “Oh, I’m having feelings and this is it. Like I’m just experiencing them in my body” because I kind of tend to want to like do something else instead and push away the emotions but when I have the container of a photoshoot with myself, then I’m able to really like focus and be like, “okay, the whole purpose of this moment is for me to connect with myself and my emotions and my body, and how I’m feeling and move through those emotions in a way that allows me to express them in my body and that shows in the images”. And for me, usually the most powerful images that I’ve taken have been self-portraits where I’ve allowed myself to FEEL.

So yeah, that’s the cliff notes of how self-portraiture connects me to myself. I’m also able to kind of experiment with who I am and who I want to be, and if I want to pretend to be someone else, and express different parts of myself, because I feel like there aren’t a lot of chances for us to explore different facets of our personalities and our thoughts and desires. There’s not a lot of context for that most times, but if I’m taking self-portraits, it can be whatever I want it to be and I can be an evil villain or I can be an innocent child, or I can be totally myself or someone else. I can be anything and it doesn’t really matter because they’re photos that I’m taking for myself. So I feel way less pressure to create something specific and I can just, I can be all of those selves in one photo shoot if I want and I think that’s very special.

So I hope you are inspired to take self portraits. I would love for you to do that. I would love to see what you create! I have a Discord server, I’ll link below, but if you’d like to take self-portraits and share them with people that appreciate art and nudity and self-portraiture, you can share them on my Discord, it’s free! You can join for free. Just come on and join us! Yeah, I’d love to see what you create.

Share your self portraits! Click here to join us on Discord!

If you would like to create self portraits in a group setting, where you are off doing your own thing, but then you can come back and communicate and collaborate with others or do a group self-portrait. We will be doing Conscious Creativity, August 27th and 28th in Ypsilanti, Michigan with Lior Allay and Roarie Yum. I’m so excited! This is gonna be our first in-person workshop since the pandemic started, so that’s quite an opportunity. I would love for you to join us if you’re able. I’ll share the Eventbrite information below. It has all the details of all the information you’ll need to know. But if there’s anything that you’re wondering about and the information is not the Eventbrite, just shoot me an email or comment below and I will do my best to get back to you and give you the information that you need. Yeah. I’m going to link the Eventbrite below. I’d love for you to join us.

All the information about Conscious Creativity is at this link!

Let’s take self portraits together! August 27th and 28th, it’s 2days, they’re both half days. And yeah, I’m super stoked for this event. I’m very excited! So, if you’d like to join us, information’s below and I will talk to you soon. I love you! Bye!

Create self portraits with me at Conscious Creativity!

CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

Good morning! Well, it might not be morning for you, but it’s morning for me, so I’m saying good morning. Today I wanted to just say hi and thank you for being here and I’m kind of struggling to figure out what I want to say. I think it’s because I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things in a way that makes sense, and I don’t always make sense, so the things I do don’t always make sense, and it’s okay. I’m a human. I don’t want to repeat myself on here, but I do also want to share cool things with you.

So, I thought that I would just share a little bit of information… I think I already did. But about these photos that I’m about to share with you, that are down below. I already said some of it when I was talking about self portraits, was it last month, maybe October? Recently, I was talking about self portraits and on November, I think it was the 18th. I did a kind of like a co-working session, sort of like a, it was a sneak-peek preview of the self portraits that I had taken that I haven’t shared anywhere yet, which are these photos that are about to be shared with y’all!! Thank you. For those of you who came and joined me on Zoom live to go through the photos. That was really fun. I’ll probably do that again.

So, the backstory for these photos, if you missed the blog previously, whatever that was. I don’t have dates in my brain.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VLOG ABOUT WHY SELF PORTRAITS ARE IMPORTANT TO ME

If you missed the vlog these photos, I took, I believe it was in May of 2020…. 2021? No, 2021 for sure it was this year? Maybe this year? I’m pretty sure. It was in May, I think it was this year. I took them in my sister’s house, she had just sold her house. So I think that was this year. She had just sold her house and we had already like moved everything out of the house so it was empty.

I used to live with her in that house for maybe a year and a half or two years and I had some pretty tough times when I was living there… for several reasons. Gemini is awesome, she’s a great sister. I love like, she’s easy to live with honestly. But yeah, like so the tough times didn’t necessarily have to do with her, it was just like circumstances. I had some tough times when I was living in the house, and since it was empty and I was there by myself, I took self-portraits.

I had a lot of feelings. A lot of feelings!!! and I just allowed myself to feel the feelings, because feelings are not always easy to feel. And sometimes I need like, to hold that space for myself. And sometimes the easiest way to do that is with photos, by taking self portraits and whether or not I ever share them with anyone. Like, it doesn’t matter as much, because to me what matters is the way that I feel and like allowing myself to have those feelings and like holding space for that.

Usually I’m able to like kind of focus and get in that zone when I’m taking self portraits, so I did that. I released a lot of the feelings, like, frustrations and sadness and upsets that I experienced in the house, in that house while I was taking the self-portraits before I could no longer go in the house. Like it’s already sold to someone. So that was actually the last time I was ever in that house. And as you can see in the photos, I was quite emotional.

And then after I like cried and released all my feelings, I just like danced around and got sweaty and was silly. And that also felt really good. Like it’s nice to kind of swing from one thing to another sometimes instead of like “oh I have to be really sad this whole day and let my feelings take over me for the entire day and focus on those.”

I don’t have to do that. I enjoy like, “okay, let me feel it to my feelings and like release them and see how long that feels. And then after that, if I feel up to it, the maybe I’ll do something else that feels better. That can bring me back to my more normal okay self.” So I cried, was really upset and let myself feel all that and like, hold space for that. And then after that, I was like, all right, let’s put some music on and then I danced and felt more and was able to have a range of emotions in the house.

So, yeah, that’s that’s the story behind these photos. The ones where really emotional and like crying and stuff are in what used to be my bedroom. Empty, of course, and I actually I took a bunch that were really like dark and moody and then I also took some that were lighter and I really actually like the dark ones the best. I haven’t fully decided if I’m going to edit these photos yet, so whether or not I edit them, you’ll see whatever I did. Because I haven’t decided, I’m probably going to decide about editing before I share this. And I haven’t decided yet as of making this video, so we’ll see. They’re all digital. I usually don’t edit film but sometimes I do edit video er digital because film just looks better and doesn’t need an edit. The digital like looks like digital and usually need a little bit of more like punchiness. So yeah, I haven’t decided about editing yet. We’ll see.

These are the photos… after I took the photos in the bedroom, I moved to the living room, which is the purple room that you see. Gemini’s house is so colorful, I loved it. Her living room was purple, and her kitchen was like bright green color, and the bathroom was like, teal kind of turquoise-y kinda blue. Yeah, she had a really colorful house and I loved it. I don’t know if the people who bought it kept the colors or not, but I thought it was fun to live in a very colorful house.

So yeah, that’s the story behind these photos, I hope you like them. I do have some more photos to go through that I have taken in the last year that I haven’t done anything with yet. So I might do another one of those like let’s look at them together live things. Yeah, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll probably do that again. Just not sure when I don’t have any dates yet, but I’ll of course let you know when that’s going to happen.

Yeah that’s all I have to say. Thank you! I love you so much! I appreciate so much that you’re here. I’m going to put my survey below. If you haven’t answered my survey, please, I would love to hear your feedback on what kind of content you would like to receive from me, because I want to make things that you’re interested in and that will benefit you.

I hope you liked my non-monogamy stuff for November. I had fun talking about it and I probably could talk more about it. So, yeah, reply to the survey below if you haven’t yet and let me know what kinds of things you’re interested in, and I will do my best to do more of that! Okay. Byeee!