Self portrait. 2015.

Photo taken by first-time contributor Cody Spencer, a 27-year-old man from Melbourne, Australia, who was born with a very rare genetic disorder called Von Willebrands Disease Type 3. VWD Type 3 is a severe bleeding disorder, which has effected his entire life. Cody learned to live with it right up until his early adulthood. It wasn’t until he became a father that anxiety and depression became another factor. He was never afraid of what could happen to him, because he lived his life knowing that VWD type 3 could take him at any time. He really didn’t care. It wasn’t until he had a child who depended on him that he realized his own mortality and cared about it for the first time. Unfortunately he went from one extreme to the other. He went from not caring at all, to becoming obsessed with his condition. Cody uses photography as a means of recording his memories, and as a way of leaving something of a foot print for his children in case he doesn’t get the opportunity to see them reach adulthood.

About this photo: “This is me. I took a rushed self portrait of myself during a nosebleed (I get them a lot). It’s scratched, it’s barely in focus, and was battered around (hence the scratches on the negative). It’s very much me. Which is why I like it. I plan to eventually do a full series based on self portraits during bleeds. Personally like to think this is a rough draft of a larger project I’m working on.”

Find more from Cody on his website and Instagram.

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