Self-Portrait Project

According to wikipedia, the definition of a self-portrait is as follows: A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist.)

The self-portrait can often be a dreaded assignment or project for any artist.  It requires us to examine ourselves inside and out.  It requires us to find an appropritate representation of our personality, interests, families, lives, etc.  Even if the portrait shows the artist in a false persona or exagerrated situation, it still reflects their own personal story.

If you google the word self-portrait you’ll see hundreds of thousands of examples of portraits from the amateur to the expert!  It’s all about trial and error until you find something that expresses your idea to the fullest.  Are you going to show a specific mood?  Do you want to express your perspective on a certain subject or idea?  Are you going to take yourself out of your element and takes risks?  Self-portraits can be awkward.  Self-portraits can be liberating. Self-portraits can show or hide anything to/from their audiences.   The choice lies in your hands alone…literally.

The assignment for Module 3 in my Fundamentals of Photography class was to create a self-portrait.  As soon as I saw the assignment title, I knew I was in for a challenge.  It’s tough to create an original and compeltely unique idea for a self-portrait!  In the process of finding ideas for this assignment, I decided that I’m going to start an ongoing self-portrait project and post my images to this blog page!  There wasn’t a lot of freedom in this specific assignment (no cropping, no black and white, no photoshop, etc.)  I wanted to give myself a challenge by choosing to make a series of self-portraits and then allowing myself some freedom of processing the images.  I hope you enjoy!  Feel free to leave your own self-portrait images as comments or link me to your own sets!

Not all of these images will be edited. Not all of them will be with a DSLR.  I’ll take some of these on good days. I will take some of these on less-than-good days.  The point of this page and project is so that I may experiment with different ideas.  While most of these images will be created after this assignment was announced in my class, there may be some older images mixed in.  There will be images taken with much deliberation and purpose, but others may be accidental self-portraits.  Some images may be more professional in quality, others may appear to be less so.  To me, these self-portraits are about sharing an inside look at an artist so that their audience can get to know them better.   This is about finding a way for my own self to be reflected in my photography.  Instead of asking someone else to be my experimental subject, I will test these things out on myself.  Creating self-portraits over a bit of time will also reflect changes in environment, society, technology, as well as track personal growth or change.  I am excited to see what changes and ideas take place.  I am even more excited to share these things with others.