A few more thoughts about the self-portrait project I'm working on. Part of my attraction to the idea of multiple self-portraits (or regular portraits) is the strange tension that is created. When two or three (or nine) of the same person is looking out at you from the rectangular confines of the image, the confrontation factor is increased (it's hard enough to not feel the heebie jeebies when those eyes keep watching as you walk around the room). What adds to the tension is the bending of the rules of time (in a sense). Our brain understands the time involved in taking one shot of the sitter . . . what happens when we have multiples of the same sitter in the same shot? This is what I think I like best about the idea . . . the concept behind making the image comes through. We start to ask questions: how did he/she do that? which one was taken first? why bother?
If an art piece doesn't ask more questions than it answers, then it's not very successful (look at me. . . all confident and such lol).
So the next stage in the project is to shoot the photos and then I'll retouch and tweak them in photoshop. I think I've got a good white balance and focus going. I had some problems choosing a vantage point for my first shoot last night, but it just takes a bunch of throw away takes to get it right. I've also had problems with the framing (ie. crooked framing lol) but that's just something you learn while doing and paying attention to the crop area.
This one doesn't have much to do with photography but it does question the idea of what it means to be an individual in a mass of people. Also, I think Do-Ho Suh is great.
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