Photography: portraits

new first time portraits

my lovely portraiture class are starting their blogs today, I hope they do something interesting, unique, fun, evaluative, 

Comfy Indian trousers

  • Composing playlists for travel takes time and the right type of music at the right time during such adventures can be crucial!
  • It can heighten the emotions and the senses can sing with excitement.
  • This being said it also can be quite nice to have comfy trousers whilst enjoying these things...especially India in the rain!
  • You're right on many accounts, getting the tunes right is v important, take your time, right now I'm liking Gyptian - hold you (but not the major lazer remix!) v lovely. Comfy trouser, ahhh yes how true. So where abouts exactly are you heading?

John Coplans portrait

  • You have viewed this shot and I am now interested to read what you are thinking?
  • I think this is disgusting, why did he not shave his back?
  • Ok, so actually its interesting, I'm not sure a self-portrait needs to be nude!, but perhaps for him it did, because for his age, this is a hidden part of himself unlike so many younger people.
  • I'm going to look him up
Mariell Amelie makes a lot of self portraits with real attention to detail in terms of the environment and selection of props. Many of the props are unfamiliar, perhaps because they have been sourced in Norway. This adds to the sense of the story that always seems to be apparent in her work. Her projects carry a lot of the sense of what we might terms as ‘beauty’ even when the situation is unusual or challenging. The soft lighting and her posture to the camera might suggest that ‘the beautiful’ is as much a part of her photograph as the strange narrative that the combination of her props suggests.

Mariell Amelie makes a lot of self portraits with real attention to detail in terms of the environment and selection of props. Many of the props are unfamiliar, perhaps because they have been sourced in Norway. This adds to the sense of the story that always seems to be apparent in her work. Her projects carry a lot of the sense of what we might terms as ‘beauty’ even when the situation is unusual or challenging. The soft lighting and her posture to the camera might suggest that ‘the beautiful’ is as much a part of her photograph as the strange narrative that the combination of her props suggests.

my self portrait

  • What does my self portrait suggest to you?
Self Portrait in single breasted suit - Sam Taylor Wood 2001 This self portrait documents a significant moment in the artist’s life: her recent battle with a second occurrence of cancer, which resulted in a mastectomy. The artist captures herself in a frozen moment, confronting her mortality holding the cable release of her camera and a stuffed hare. Taylor-Wood explained: ‘The hare symbolises lust and passion, so here I am with a head of hair, in a single-breasted suit, holding on to lust and passion.’ Sam Taylor Wood has used herself as the subject of much of her work. When I first saw her work it was a relief to see a woman clearly a photographer making this strongly narrative images with herself as the central theme, chosen, posed, directed and shot from her own viewpoint.

Self Portrait in single breasted suit - Sam Taylor Wood 2001

This self portrait documents a significant moment in the artist’s life: her recent battle with a second occurrence of cancer, which resulted in a mastectomy. The artist captures herself in a frozen moment, confronting her mortality holding the cable release of her camera and a stuffed hare. Taylor-Wood explained: ‘The hare symbolises lust and passion, so here I am with a head of hair, in a single-breasted suit, holding on to lust and passion.’

Sam Taylor Wood has used herself as the subject of much of her work. When I first saw her work it was a relief to see a woman clearly a photographer making this strongly narrative images with herself as the central theme, chosen, posed, directed and shot from her own viewpoint.

Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Gesture, grimace, clothing, decor even – all must combine to realize a character. (Charles Baudelaire)

This is a fairly recent self portrait I made. Yikes I look scary. I photographed myself behind a range of different glass types used for doors around the 60s/70s. All glass types had different qualities and fragmented my face in different ways. I’ll be reshooting this with more light on the face. The distance I stood from the glass controlled the focus of the face within the glass sheet. I shot it in black and white too, but I’ll be reshooting those too because the contrast was too great and it meant you looked at this more than the subject in the glass!

This is a fairly recent self portrait I made. Yikes I look scary. I photographed myself behind a range of different glass types used for doors around the 60s/70s. All glass types had different qualities and fragmented my face in different ways. I’ll be reshooting this with more light on the face. The distance I stood from the glass controlled the focus of the face within the glass sheet. I shot it in black and white too, but I’ll be reshooting those too because the contrast was too great and it meant you looked at this more than the subject in the glass!

self portraits

Self portraits are filled with self-consciousness and self-revealing. Many photographers and artists have turned the camera on themselves, often because it’s the only model you know will turn up! We all have portraits which we think are ‘like’ us, and some which we loathe. But they will all represent something of us, beyond a record shot or a flattering portrait.

Starform Alex - production still for video performance This is a portrait I shot in 2007! A lot of my work looks at how music can influence my art making. Here Alex is singing his favourite song with heartfelt emotion, almost unaware of myself, the medium format camera, the video camera, the microphones, the lights, the small orchestra I’d brought to his home … .  When I shot this, I knew I’d caught him!

Starform Alex - production still for video performance

This is a portrait I shot in 2007! A lot of my work looks at how music can influence my art making. Here Alex is singing his favourite song with heartfelt emotion, almost unaware of myself, the medium format camera, the video camera, the microphones, the lights, the small orchestra I’d brought to his home … . 

When I shot this, I knew I’d caught him!