Normally, when I'm experiencing work-related pressure, my disability is the last thing on my mind. Kept busy, it truly does become incidental to who I am - the work, or play, at hand is much more important. However, I'm supposed to be writing specifically about my experience as a photographer and part-time journalist who's in a wheelchair. But because I'm so stressed trying to get this done, I can't seem to connect the chair with the work. I don't feel disabled right now. I feel past deadline.

I have to be completely honest by stating that my chair has in no way hindered my work as a photographer. If anything, it has got me noticed a bit more, which is a definite plus. Other small advantages would be the lower angle I shoot from, plus the ease some people seem to feel when I photograph them. Although both cameras and wheelchairs tend to make folks uncomfortable, when they're combined the reverse seems to be the case.

As for the writing, I must admit I've fallen into a bit of a rut recently. I keep insisting my disability is incidental to my life, yet this is the third piece I've done on the subject in a month. Kind of destroys my argument.

I don't mind being an occasional activist if it needs to be done, yet I've no desire to be defined solely as such (no offence to full-time activists).

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my photography does not suffer the same problem. All of my images are decidedly unpolitical and, apart from myself, there is not a single disabled folk to be seen. This is not by choice. In fact, when I first came back to Galway to live, I planned to pursue realistic and positive images of disability. Intending to get re-involved with wheelchair sports and disability issues, I soon learned that while Galway may be considered the San Francisco of Ireland, it's a far cry from Berkeley: a young, progressive disability community (at least one geared toward my needs) seemed not to exist.

I would still like to pursue this work. (I hope I'm not being presumptious in this desire, and I never claim to speak for others with disability, especially those with different types. I realise all our experiences are unique, but we are all damaged by negative images.)

My whole life I've been bombarded with pathetic stereotypes or over-the-top courage stories. Ending up a paraplegic young, reintegrated back into my local school (luckily, fully accessible) and growing up pretty normally - thanks to the wonderful attitude of my parents - meant I never saw my life as not worth living, or as evidence of some superhuman strength or courage within myself.

Being perceived like that was much worse than the reality of being in a chair. I resented people using the wheelchair, to me a wonderful, liberating vehicle, to evoke pity or scare people from drunk or dangerous driving. For example: sitting in my high-school auditorium in my senior year, I looked up on stage to see an assembly presentation being prepared. One of the signs, positioned directly in front of me, read: "If You Think Fifth Period Last Forever, Try Sitting Here for the Rest of Your Life", with a large picture of a clunky hospital wheelchair.

I tried to shrug it off, but it infuriated me. To see such an image in a magazine would have been bad enough, but having it stare down at me, knowing that dozens of my peers were now looking at it, and thinking of me, was too much.

Such negative propaganda will always exist, I guess, and maybe it serves a purpose, I don't know. But I'd just like to see it countered with realism: TV shows with disabled characters who are sexual; hard-news stories with images of disability not being used to illustrate any point, but just including this diversity without making an issue of it.

I'd hate to see tokenism, but what would be so wrong with making disability chic for a bit? Every other minority has had its small moment in the sun, before retiring into being just another part of the social landscape. I think it's our turn.