CAPTION FOR THE VIDEO ABOVE:

Good morning friends. I’m trying to not be too distracted. I started my period this morning so I’m in pain but I wanted to continue to, you know, be consistent with yall. *sigh* It’s hard to focus when your uterus is trying to turn itself inside out. So this week I’m sharing another self portrait set that I took in Utah in the summer of 2019 and the behind the scenes video and first look is getting another self portrait set from Utah in 2019 and the BTS video. The first look BTS video makes me laugh because when I was taking these self portraits I was on this really long dirt road outside of Grand Staircase Escalante and I thought I was the only one there but there were like, I think 2 instances where a car drove by and I had to grab my camera and hide behind my van. So you get to see that happening and that’s kinda funny of me rushing “oh shit I gotta hide!” so yeah that’s a thing. That’s for first look people. The BTS this week for everybody isn’t as exciting, I mean it IS exciting because you get to see me taking self portraits, but nobody catches me which is good.

Yeah so this morning I’m in pain because I’m menstruating and the last maybe year or so I’ve been having menstrual pain the first day of my period, which didn’t really happen before when I had an IUD, but since I’ve taken that out, around a year ago now, my period has changed a little bit. Getting to know my body without any medical intervention things has been good, but yeah painful. I woke up at like 6:30 this morning in pain and I haven’t really been able to go back to sleep so I figured I might as well do this. The… I don’t really have much else to say about the photosets, I really love them, I hope you do too. I want to go back to Utah. Hopefully later this week I’ll be going to the mountains by myself, depending on how my period goes and if I think it’s safe to be out there sleeping in my van for a couple of days, because I do still want to like, use public restrooms and things because that’s slightly more comfortable when you’re on your period, to use a public restroom than to use a bush.

It’s hard to concentrate. Uhm oh hi squirrely. Oh I realized that I’m shadowbanned on instagram which makes me angry and I just switched to a creator profile because the analytics and stuff are cool but I feel like that’s probably part of why I got shadowbanned, and also because I had a photo that was deleted because it “violates community guidelines” except it DOESN’T, there’s no nipple or anything, you just see a little bit of underboob and it’s not the highlight of the photo, so I just am… I feel like I dislike instagram more every day but sadly that’s where most of the people I want to follow and see what they’re doing and meet with are existing online so it’s complicated. I have a very much love hate relationship with instagram. I just wish instagram was run by like, queer anarchists or something you know, then everything would be better, but sadly IG is run by cis white men that have lots of money so we know how that goes. I really wanted to be slightly more interesting this week but my period is fogging my brain and I don’t have much else to say. I got my haircut, I like having it really short like this because it feels really good to rub it.

I do want to tell you about the next Going Beyond the Lens event that’s coming up that I’m excited about. It’s going to be on Sep… oop September, I’m not going back in time. It’s going to be on November 21st which is a Saturday, at 1pm eastern and we are going to be discussing erotic art! If you’ve read my last few Saturday posts you know that I don’t want sexual attention so this erotic art event is uncomfortable for me and feels vulnerable but I’m basically going to be like the asexual representation at this event, so you’ll get a well-rounded conversation about erotic art. I’m excited and nervous about it, I think it’s going to be a good one. If you’d like to join us we have a special guest that’s going to be a part of it and I’m really excited. So I’ll put the link in the caption of this video so you can join us. It’s a free event, FREE, free free free, you don’t have to pay anything to join, and it’s going to be a live group video call for everybody that comes. I’m really excited, these events usually last around 3 hours. They’re always really fun and I always get a lot out of them, so while I’m kindof nervous talking about erotic art and it feels vulnerable to me, I’m still excited because I think we’re all going to learn some cool things. I’m also really excited to see what people submit for their erotic art, because you know, I always love seeing everybody else’s work. If you have erotic art you’d like to share with us for this event, there’s a link for that too. I’ll put that in the caption so you can submit your art if you want.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE EROTIC ART EVENT
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR EROTIC ART

I think that’s all I have to say, I love you so much, thank you for being here with me every week. I will continue to be here with you every week, at whatever capacity is possible, even if it’s like today and I’m kinda out of it because I’m in pain. Y’all are important to me so I want to continue to be consistent and sometimes that means I’m partially present and other times that means I’m very present. Today I’m partially present because my uterus is screaming at me. I love being on my period, once the pain goes away on the first day it’s a great time. I like the cycle of my body and how it usually follows the full moon and how it connects me to myself so I really like that. Also speaking of menstruation and censorship, I have a video on Youtube about why I love menstruating as an agender person and the cover photo I have for it was a photo of me that my friend Portraitmami took. It’s basically me in white underwear with blood on them and blood on my leg. You can’t see any genitalia, it’s just underwear with period blood on it but youtube decided that that was either violent or nude, even though it’s neither of those things, but youtube decided to delete my cover photo for that video because it said youtube doesn’t like seeing menstrual blood even though I think it’s awesome. More annoyance at censorship and bullshit online platforms that I feel like are also necessary because everybody is using them. So this is me ranting about bullshit censorship and bullshit social media things but… I digress. Okay yeah that’s all I have for this week. This is already a longer video than I usually make. Yeah I just wanted to say hi and I love you and I’m so glad that you’re here and literally youre the reason I’m able to pay rent and buy myself food so that means a lot. I also really like speaking to yall and seeing the things you’re interested in that I’m doing and I love hearing feedback so yeah the conversations that I’ve had with yall have been really wonderful and I’d like to continue that. Please comment on this post or send me an email or whatever feels best for you. I’m open to chatting about the things that you like and the things you’re inspired by and any questions you have.

Oh yeah how could I forget?! I was interviewed for Lenscratch which is a big photography magazine kinda thing and I was interviewed and it was amazing so I’m going to put a link here too because I think it’s a really great introduction to my work. The person who did the interview with me, Kat Davis, asked really excellent questions that really helped me articulate my process and the meaning behind my work so that’s great. So if you’d like to check out that interview I’ll put the link to that in the caption also. Yeah okay now I’m just rambling. I love you, thank you for being here, check out all the things, yeah thank you. Hopefully my cramps go away soon. You get to witness me and my crampiness. Ok. I love you! Bye.

CLICK HERE TO READ MY INTERVIEW FOR LENSCRATCH

All members:
click here to view the 28 image self portrait photoset (Sunset on the Edge)
click here to view the 2 minute BTS video
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First Look/All Access members:
click here to view the 27 image self portrait photoset I took near Grand Staircase Escalante in Utah during my cross country trip summer 2019
click here to view 2.5 minutes of BTS video

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