Reflected Identities

Photo story and words by Alison Turner

When I look in the mirror, what I see reflecting back at me is usually not how I feel inside. under the superficial layer of skin, hair and eye color, I am much more complex than my reflection reveals. My internal struggles and search for self-identity has given me plenty of bricks to build the wall high, while holding down an internal mix of intense feelings of anger, loss, jealousy, vulnerability, love, sadness and confusion.

“They say,” that you are a direct reflection of your friends and the people you choose to surround yourself with. If this holds true, all

of my friends in this series are a collective self portrait of who I am. “Reflected Identities” has allowed me to see and understand these feelings by looking closer at the faces and bodies of the people who are closest to me, who are also learning to accept who they are right now.