“Knickers & Shit Kickers”
Nov. 19th, 2003

This photo represents the very 1st time I had a creative idea in mind for a specific image, then used a camera to execute it, and I’ve always been pretty proud of it. All my photos before this were either shitty analog film selfies taken with self-timers by jumping in the frame and posing as quickly as possible, or they were just me trying to figure out my 1st digital camera in general, using myself as the subject. This photo was taken with a little point & shoot called a Pentax Optio 33LF, which was unique at the time because it had coloured filters, long before cell phones even had cameras, let alone Instagram or Snapchat filters. What I liked about this camera was that I could see what my picture was going to look like in the preview window, with the filter applied, so I could visualize shots in ways I never could have imagined before, because it just wasn’t possible. (And this was when the internet was still a baby, so there *weren’t* billions of photo examples to look at and get inspiration from yet!) This might sound so archaic to someone who doesn’t know or remember a world without smartphones and digital cameras, but 20 years ago (omg old 🤦🏼‍♀️), it was a novel thing! 🤷🏼‍♀️  This photo was my 1st step into “real”, “beyond snapshots”, photography and I’m grateful for the random cyberpal who reminded me it existed today because I’d forgotten, and it makes *me* smile too. 😊✌️📸✨