MySide: Putting the Photographer in Frame
July 1st, 2025 | MySideOur first MySide call-out invited photographers to respond to the theme Documenting the Self. Not with selfies or diary entries, but through images that ask: who am I, and how do I show that?
This collection brings together a group of self-portraits made in response. Each one holds its own mood. Some are composed and quiet. Others are playful, raw or surreal. All reflect a decision about how the photographer wants to be seen.
Self-portraiture changes the usual rules of documentary as it hands control to the subject. The photographer chooses what to reveal, how to frame it, and what story to tell, and in turn this blurs the line between observer and participant. It reminds us that personal experience belongs in documentary, not outside it.
There’s no single version of self here. These images are about identity, memory, culture, care and invention. But what they share is an intent: the person behind the camera is also in the image, and that shift makes space for something honest, thoughtful, and full of individuality.
Yuliia Syrenkova: Tynemouth Market, 2023
"This is a self-portrait taken on Sunday, when the Tynemounth market is usually on. I lived on the coast then, and this image represents my first experience in the UK: eventful, historical, new."
Eve McDonald: Self Portrait in Venice, 2023
"This self portrait was taken almost accidentally as I was distracted trying to photograph the reflection of the buildings. I ended up capturing one of my favourite photos of myself doing everything I love; exploring a foreign city, taking photos, and wearing my favourite, green dress. It was taken during the last couple weeks of my Study Abroad year, in which I travelled to Turkey, Morocco, Spain and Italy. I had been really struggling during my first few years of university with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which I’ve had since I was 14. This year abroad was my first full year of university with new medication that was actually making a difference. I did so many thing that I never thought I’d be able to do and I was very sad that this academic year was coming to an end. The end of every summer is always bittersweet but this one was especially so."
Dawn Jenkins: Shadow Time, 2022
"My family and friends are my world. I have amazing daughter who is an artist and creator who I enjoy exploring Newcastle with, as well as adventures to Northumberland, the lakes and beyond. The images in the photos of shows myself with my daughter at a place we have frequently visited throughout her childhood and now as an adults. Being a mam has been my greatest joy."
Claire-Louise Pitman: Coronal Incision, 2020
"This was the first time I shaved my head hair off which was such a weird rebellious feeling."
nicola davison reed: You&me, 2025
"During the downtime [at my photography studio], in between photographing families, mothers, fathers, babies, creatives, aunties, grandparents, and even hamsters, I take to making conceptual images and this is the self, photographed conceptually. A self portrait of myself photographing you."
Dave Pritchard: Dave Pritchard, 2020
"The self is sometimes more revealingly documented in shadows and reflections – when literal depiction conventions are bypassed, and the paradoxical truth of simultaneous fragility and potential can come to the fore."
Neil Bankhurst: Lockdown Neil, 2023
"Portrait taken by me to show my state during lockdown, on a 5x4 camera in a studio once my mental health had recovered."
Lucy Saggers: Self Portrait in disused grocery shop window, 2024
Submit to MySide"The image is from the series 'At the Still Point of the Turning World', which considers themes of community, belonging & the passage of time through the photographer's prolonged observation of the single, deeply rural village landscape that has been her home for over twenty years. Seeking to know the place by exploring its essential nature, and thereby perhaps also to better know oneself."