From the Watchtower (2020–2021)

Between March 29, 2020, and September 25, 2021, amid the stillness of the pandemic lockdown, I created three hundred and fifty self-portraits using flatbed scanners, substituting the scanner’s LEDs with natural light. Freed from the scanner's controlled environment, the sensors were forced to ‘interpret’ what they weren’t designed to capture, resulting in images that abstracted reality rather than rendered it photorealistically. Each portrait marks the brightest moment of the day, with the date of creation as its title.

The series is titled From the Watchtower, a nod to Bob Dylan’s song "All Along the Watchtower." Written during the eighteen months he spent recovering from a motorcycle accident in Woodstock, Dylan’s song plays with circular time—both in its lyrics and its melody—echoing the cyclical nature of the days I documented.

From the Watchtower emerged during a time of forced isolation, a moment when time seemed both suspended and heightened. The lockdown created an unusual space for reflection, where the act of creating self-portraits became a meditative process—an exploration of both personal and collective experience. Using a flatbed scanner as a tool, I engaged with light in its most raw and unpredictable form, moving away from the sterile, mechanical precision typically associated with digital reproduction. By allowing natural light to replace the controlled illumination of the scanner, the project transcends the boundaries of traditional photography, embracing the unpredictability and abstraction that arises when technology encounters the organic world. The series documents not just physical presence, but the fluctuating states of mind and mood in the face of global uncertainty, mirroring the cyclical and fragmented nature of time itself.