I took a self-portrait every day for a year and a half — here are my thoughts on this project.
I recently started considering the idea of creating a book that would compile all of my self-portrait series. This led me to revisit a series I created between March 2013 and September 2014. Titled Le Journal, it consists of 500 self-portraits, taken daily over the course of 500 days.
I had been thinking about doing a project like this for a while, but I was waiting for the right moment to fully commit to such an extensive series. That moment finally came, and I embarked on the project. As you might have guessed, it turned out to be both fascinating and incredibly challenging. My goal was to create something different every day — staged photographs reflecting my daily life (spoiler: I didn’t quite succeed) — and to be satisfied with my work (spoiler n°2: I wasn’t, at least not until recently).
Before sharing my thoughts on this series, I’d like to share my original statement of intent with you:
Le Journal is a photographic series of 500 self-portraits taken between March 2013 and September 2014. Each image captures a daily action — putting on makeup, waiting for the train, studying — moments I genuinely experienced but reconstructed for the camera. The result is a fictionalized version of my daily life.
Traditionally, a personal diary is seen as a collection of secret confessions.
These confessions can capture moments of joy and anxiety. However, despite its title, The Diary challenges the conventions of a traditional diary. Nowhere in this series are the highs and lows of this period explicitly revealed. In May 2013, I travelled to Budapest; in July 2013, my grandfather died; in January 2014, I was mugged — but none of these events or their aftermath appear in the images. As the project evolved, I constructed an avatar of myself, with each photograph marking a boundary between what I chose to show and what I actually experienced. I wanted this project to be seen, which explains the feeling of detachment. Unlike a diary that is meant to remain private, this work was created with the awareness of an outside eye.
The camera became a witness to the scenes — I was aware of being photographed, prompting me to act and pose in response to its mechanical gaze. As a result, I never appeared entirely natural. Furthermore, the creation of a double and the illusion of a transparent life, observed by potential viewers, undeniably echo the rise of selfie culture.
Le Journal was influenced by the autofictions of Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet, 1982) and Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar, 1963).
This project was fascinating because I was constantly seeking new ways to create images, despite repeatedly doing the same things in the same places — studying at school, staying at home, and so on. I experimented with different angles, but out of the 500 images in the series, I truly like only about 25. I find these particular images better composed, more original, and more striking than the rest. In that sense, the series now feels to me like a kind of contact sheet.
Of course, I would have loved to create many more interesting pictures for this series, but I think that’s one of the main challenges when working on a project like this. Your creativity has to be limitless, and it would be a lie to say I was constantly inspired. I remember some days, the project felt more like a burden than a pleasure, thinking, What am I going to do today?
This series is quite monotonous, mainly due to the repetitive actions and locations in the images. Perhaps that’s why I have mixed feelings about it: it would have been better to showcase more varied stories, but at the same time, my life was quite monotonous back then, so it makes sense.
Another thing that jumped out at me was how rarely my face is visible in the photos. Most of the time, my face isn’t pointed at the camera, or it’s too dark to make out. It makes me laugh, especially as some people consider this work to be very narcissistic. But what I find interesting, now that I’ve taken a step back, is that this work could represent any woman of my age — it’s completely universal. It made me think about how I saw and represented myself at the time. The series reveals a distance between my actual experiences and what I showed in the images, but it also highlights a distance between me as a photographer and me as a subject. I was in control of how I wanted to appear (because, of course, I wanted to look ‘good’), but I was always using myself as a kind of canvas, a subject that could have been anyone.
I think my photography teacher would have wanted me to keep going as long as possible, but I decided to stop after 500 images because I no longer enjoyed creating the series. I also felt like I had made my point and was ready to move on to something else.
This series has been a true challenge, one that I considered abandoning at least once (particularly after being assaulted because of my camera). Despite not liking many of the images, I’m glad I completed it. Le Journal holds an important place in my artistic universe, as it truly embodies the themes I often explore: deceptive appearances, intimacy, self-portraiture, and more. If I had to do it again, I would do so without hesitation. Through the process, I realized what I was and wasn’t capable of. I also appreciate how I created a diary that isn’t a genuine diary. It has been incredibly helpful in many ways and has also served as a bridge to my other series, especially Asymétrie, where I explore the shift from photographer to model. Surprisingly, it has become one of the projects I enjoy revisiting and feel proud of. As time passes, it seems to reveal more and more insights.
