The Other Side of Joy: My Journey Through Hormones, Nature, and Self-Portraiture
Conceptual photography often exists in the realm of metaphor for me. However, The Other Side of Joy began from something deeply physical. I created this series to explore hormonal shifts. These shifts are subtle, cyclical, and often invisible. They can reshape my perception, mood, and identity. These changes feel both intimate and disorienting.
I didn’t want to treat emotional turbulence as something abstract. Instead, I anchored the work in biology. Hormonal change became a narrative force, quietly altering the texture of my everyday life. In this sense, I visualised an internal chemistry that cannot be seen. It is profoundly felt, translating my bodily experience into symbolic imagery. The conceptual grew directly from the physical. This serves as a reminder that identity is not static. It is continually negotiated through the body.
Discovering PMDD and Recognising a Hidden Narrative
For most of my adult life, I went through recurring cycles of feeling fully myself. Then came periods of sadness, anxiety, and lethargy. These feelings seemed to arrive without explanation. These shifts often lasted a week or more and felt disconnected from my external circumstances.
I first became aware of hormonal imbalance in my late twenties after I stopped taking the contraceptive pill. Suddenly, a constellation of symptoms appeared: mood swings, headaches, painful periods, body aches, acne flare-ups, dizziness, and sudden emotional vulnerability. I repeatedly had medical tests, all coming back normal, leaving me with the unsettling sense that something was happening in my body that couldn’t be easily measured or explained.
It wasn’t until years later, through my own research and exploring online communities, that I encountered PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). Reading other women’s experiences created an immediate recognition — I saw my own internal landscape reflected in their words. The discovery was both validating and troubling, revealing how frequently hormonal suffering is misunderstood or dismissed.
This realisation became the emotional and conceptual seed of The Other Side of Joy. It serves as a visual exploration of cyclical identity and vulnerability. It also examines the quiet resilience required to navigate both.
Why Self-Portraiture Was Essential
Because the series grew from my own lived experience, self-portraiture felt like the most honest and direct form of storytelling. I had already begun using self-portraiture out of necessity in earlier projects when collaborators would cancel at the last minute. Over time, stepping in front of the camera became more than practical — it became my artistic language.
When I photograph myself, I become both narrator and witness. The process is therapeutic but also confronting, surfacing emotions and thoughts that might otherwise remain subconscious. In The Other Side of Joy, self-portraiture allowed vulnerability and agency to coexist, turning my personal struggles into a shared visual dialogue.
Nature as a Metaphor for the Cyclical Feminine Body
Although I began this series to visualise PMDD, its visual language expanded naturally. I created many images outdoors, letting the rhythms of nature guide me. Water, reflections, organic textures, and animal references became recurring motifs. These motifs echo the cyclical patterns of growth, decay, and renewal. They shape both the natural world and the female body.
Working in natural environments helped me move beyond the medical framing of my experience. Femininity appeared not as fragility, but as a force — graceful yet unpredictable, generative yet destructive. Mirrors and water surfaces introduced layered reflections. These reflections represented the multiplicity of identity. They also depicted the shifting emotional states that accompany hormonal change.
I also incorporated fragments of text from other women’s voices, printed and embedded in the images. This created a quiet chorus of shared experience, transforming my individual narrative into collective testimony and reinforcing the idea that private suffering often exists within a broader, largely unspoken community.
Literary Influence and the Search for Instinct
A major inspiration throughout the project was Women Who Run With Wolves. I returned to certain passages repeatedly. I used them almost like meditative prompts. They helped me translate emotional states into visual ideas.
The book’s exploration of archetype and instinct resonated deeply with my series. It encouraged me to see cyclical emotional experience differently. I viewed it not just as pathology, but as part of a broader narrative. This narrative includes transformation, intuition, and creative power. This allowed me to move my work from documentation of distress toward a celebration of complexity, beauty and resilience.
Behind the Scenes: Instinct, Collaboration, and Spontaneity
I developed the series over approximately a year, moving between my studio in London and my family home in Italy. My process was largely instinctual, shaped by experimentation, research, and moments of improvisation. I often used objects and props from my personal surroundings — items carrying emotional resonance and memory.
Some images, like Lethargy and Insomnia, were created outdoors at night. Friends supported these shoots. This turned the process into a shared ritual. Some, like Like a Fish in a Bottle and Mind Your Emotions, emerged almost spontaneously. It felt as if the project was guiding me rather than the other way around.
This back-and-forth between planning and intuition mirrored the thematic core of the series. It highlighted the tension between control and surrender inherent in cyclical experience.
Emotional Challenges and the Decision to Share
Creating the images felt empowering, yet sharing them publicly came with doubt. The vulnerability of the work made exposure feel risky. Ultimately, remembering the relief and recognition I felt when discovering other women’s stories motivated me to release the series.
Since its publication, conversations sparked by the work have revealed the depth of shared experience surrounding hormonal health and emotional fluctuation. Viewers often share personal testimonies, frustrations with medical systems, or simply the comfort of feeling understood. These interactions continue to shape the evolving life of the project.
The Meaning Behind the Title
The title The Other Side of Joy reflects my attempt to reframe struggle rather than negate it. The word “dysphoric,” central to PMDD, represents an emotional state often positioned as the opposite of joy. Yet in this series, I chose to present dysphoria as another perspective on joy — a reminder that emotional depth, vulnerability, and transformation are inseparable from experiences of vitality and growth.
For me, the “other side” is not an absence of joy, but an expansion of its definition: a space where discomfort and beauty coexist, and where creative expression becomes a pathway toward integration.
A Space Between the Personal and the Collective
Although rooted in my own experiences, The Other Side of Joy also gestures toward a collective emotional landscape. Hormonal change, identity shifts, and the negotiation between instinct and expectation extend far beyond my own story. By merging biology, symbolism, natural metaphor, and self-representation, I created a space where private reflection intersects with shared understanding.
Within that intersection, vulnerability becomes generative — capable of sparking dialogue, empathy, and transformation. The series is an ongoing exploration of how storytelling and image-making can illuminate experiences that often remain hidden, offering not resolution but recognition.
For a deeper look into my thought process and creative journey while making The Other Side of Joy, I shared an interview with Feature Shoot, a photography blog I admire. In the article, I discuss how the series developed. I also share the personal experiences that inspired it. Additionally, I explain the ways I approached visualising hormonal cycles and emotional depth. You can read the full interview here.
