Be Our Guest: All Photographs are Self Portraits

In Guest, Inspiration, Portraiture, Uncategorized
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My name is Corinna Hofer. I am an enthusiastic amateur photographer living in Berne, Switzerland. I’m married and have two adult children who left our home a few years ago.

Traveling and exploring new destinations is a love my husband and I have been sharing for years. Whenever possible it is our intention to avoid the typical tourist paths and we often choose to walk in the so-called opposite directions. I want to get a true feeling of the place, people, their surroundings, the light…

I am a keen observer with love for the detail. My photographs are not staged, they show my view of the world around me as it is unfolding right in front of my eyes.

If you are interested in my travel and everyday photography you can go to my IG account. You will find me @corinnaho.

For this blog post I chose another aspect of my photographic work. I selected a small series of images I call ‘Conversations with my Soul’. Most of the photographs have been taken over the last 12 months.

“All photographs are self-portraits,” Minor White says.  Questions like “who am I?” are always present in my mind.  It is an ongoing process that never ends.

Similar to writing morning pages where I connect with my unconscious mind, making photographs gives me the opportunity to give the unconscious a visual voice. I often sit with my photographs to study them, again and again.  Brian Dilg writes: “Given how the mind protects us from painful experiences, burying memories in our unconscious, it is perhaps not surprising that artists cannot always figure out what it is they are looking for by consciously thinking about it. The pictures themselves point the way.”

Intuition has been my best guide in photography. As a human being and creative person I’m guided by the motto: be open. be curious. ask questions. find answers. ask new questions.

You as the viewers of “Conversations with my Soul” will interpret the images and make meaning filtered through your own unconscious beliefs.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this work. Enjoy!

Me at age 2. This photo was taken by my father





Do you want to Be Our Guest?  Leave us a comment below with a link to your blog, Instagram account, or other place you post your images.  You can also add a hashtag to your IG images: #viewfindersio_beourguest.

See you soon.

xo lucy

7 Comments

  1. hello! i enjoy viewfinders very much and would be interested in being a guest.

    i live outside of chicago and shoot mostly film with point and shoot cameras. i began later, in my mid 50s.

    i recently completed a one year low residency program at the international center of photography in nyc.

    thank you!

    • Hi Nancy: We’d be happy to have you as a guest. Please send me a message on IG (click on my name in the post above) and I can share my email address. Then I can send you more information about the schedule and the details of send your post. Thanks so much. –lucy

  2. Hi Corinna, It’s a pleasure to meet you. Since I am not on Instagram I am always grateful when ViewFinders introduces me to a new artist/friend I might not otherwise have met. I popped over to your Instagram Feed and felt as though I’d been on a lovely vacation. Like you, I love off-the-beaten-path adventures. Your collection of photos here is thoughtful and moving, and I agree totally – we often take pictures without knowing the why, but the meaning is there for us to discover if we only remain open and curious. Thanks for a beautiful start to my day!

  3. wonderful view of yourself Corinna @corinnaho

  4. Corinna, I have followed and admired your work on IG for a very long time. It is lovely to learn a bit more about you. Thank you for sharing your process and your beautiful images with us.

  5. Oh how I have missed your work, now I no longer go on IG.
    I must rectify that.
    Thank you so much for sharing your vision here. x

  6. Thank you for sharing these peaceful, contemplative images with us. I am really taken by that Minor White quote. I’ll be mulling that one over for a while.

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