Anne-Laure Autin

About 6 weeks ago, I was in bed with a small migraine when I suddenly felt pins and needles moving up my arms and my tong which started to feel swollen. At the same time one of my arms became intensely warm. That was weird enough that I thought I should call for help but as I was about to, something else happened. It’s hard to describe. I felt like a wave pulsing through me from my head down to my toes and with that, I found myself completely paralysed. I couldn’t move anything anymore – I wanted to, I tried to open my eyes, move my arms, scream… I couldn’t. It didn’t last very long but long enough for it to be incredibly frightening. Tests including a brain MRI, neuro consults and what not seem to point towards a bad case of migraine accompagnée. So no biggie. I don’t worry anymore, the doctors ruled out the two seriously scary stuff they were afraid of and I’m well taken care of. We’re trying to find out the cause but I no longer am overwhelmed by bouts of irrational fear. That locked-in feeling has happened again since though, and in the moment it still scared me in ways I can’t convey.

Life is kinda back to normal. But this whole thing has left some marks on me. I need to deal with that. One way I know how is with my work. This is the first photograph I created as an attempt at doing just that. And I think it’s working…

Last week I joined another international professional association than the WPPI, the Society of Wedding and Portraits Photographers (SWPP). And I just received two Highly Commended awards in their March competition – in the Landscape and in the Fine Art & Pictorial categories. I’m especially happy with the latter one and not just because it rewards my latest work. Most images submitted there have a very painterly feel indeed, with abundant (and beautiful) digital artistry, and very few are portraits (usually female nudes). I thought I perhaps should submit this monochrome capture into another category but in the end to me it is nothing other than a Fine Art photograph – one that was created with intent and in an effort of combining aesthetics with an underlying message. So I’m really thrilled to see it Highly Commended – it must have spoken to the judges even without knowing the context and that’s a pretty cool compliment to get.