Heather McAlister was staying in a remote California farming community when she took this self-portrait. “We were staying in Tomales, near the Point Reyes national seashore. The landscape is known for its simple farmhouse architecture and green hills lined with windswept cypress trees,” she says. “It’s very serene.”
She uses self-portraiture “to interpret emotion”, speaking to themes of femininity, feminism, motherhood, identity, “all while confronting society’s definitions of beauty while ageing. The women in the photo are both me,” she explains. “The images are mirrored, with one faded and ghost-like. Both women cover their faces with an allium bloom, making their age hard to determine.”
The house as backdrop is intentional, McAlister says, representing “an American ideal: a wooden frame with symmetrical windows, covered porch and protective fence, all painted a uniform white. I wanted to portray how, to the outside world, I present an equally idealised image: a carer, a homemaker, a host.” The mirror image represents “the creative aspirations, personal limitations and unspoken truths” that might undermine that.
McAlister says iPhone apps Slow-Shutter and Pro Camera make her iPhone 14 Pro an effective tool for such photography. This photograph is the result of merging two images together: the background of the house, intentionally captured in black and white, and the self-portrait, converted to monotone and mirrored while editing.
“I hope others might see something of themselves in the image,” McAlister says. “How their desires and feelings might be hidden or masked behind how they present themselves to society.”
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