Selfie Research -
The Self Portrait has existed for hundreds of years, but in the recent century it has been adapted to photography. This created the 'Selfie'. This new genre of Self Portrait has largely existed on Social Media, with the likes of Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. It has become extremely popular due to the existence of the front facing camera on phones making it easier to take these photos. The significance of Self Portraits show a side of the Artist we may have not seen before. Certain Self Portraits may show arrogance, which could be seen from the disgust on Freud's face looking down upon something. Self-Mockery could also been shown through Self Portraits, their own opinion of themselves. Certain Self Portraits by photographers, like the one by Andy Warhol, may be edited to add different colours or morph the persons face.
Examples of Self Portraits in Art -
Left - Lucian Freud (1965), Right - Vincent Van Gogh (1889)
Examples of Self Portraits in Photography -
Left - Vivian Maier, Middle - Andy Warhol, Right - Man Ray
Selfie Phenomenon and Culture -
The culture of Self Portraits has changed in the last 10 years. It's been used more and made extremely popular. With songs named after the shortened version of Self Portrait, 'Selfie'. The 'Selfie' has spread rapidly around the world due to Social Media being an easy place to share the images. Everyone from Teenagers to Adults take Selfies wether they are aware of it or not. Selfies have even been taken in space!
Lee Friedlander -
Lee Friedlander was an American street photographer and artist. He was born in Aberdeen, Washington on the 14th of July 1934. In 1956 he moved to New York City, where he took images of Jazz Musicians, who are an iconic part of American culture in the 1960's. In 1960 he received an award from the Guggenheim Fellowship to be able to more freely focus on his artwork. Some of his most famous work appeared in the 1985 September edition of 'Playboy' which featured black and white nude images of Madonna. He worked primarily with a Leica hand-held, 35mm camera with black and white film. His work was heavily focused on 'Social Constructs' or 'Social Landscapes', his images presented the life of someone who lives in a highly urban area, like New York City. He photographed shop fronts, fences, posters, signs and rails. He now works primarily with medium format cameras such as the Hasselblad Superwide. He is also notoriously Media shy and is rarely seen.
What I like about these images is how very natural they are. How the images seem very real to the average daily life of someone in an urban area, in this case New York City. I love the composition of the images and how they have been framed and how he has utilised shadows, reflections and human expression.
Vivian Maier -
Vivian Dorothy Maier was born on February 1st 1926 in New York City and died on the 21st of April 2009. Maier worked for about forty years as a Nanny in Chicago's North Shore. She took on photography as a hobby in her spare time. In her lifetime she took over 150,000 photos. She mainly took images of the people and architecture of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. During her lifetime, many of her images were never known and not many people were aware of her talent in the subject. Many of her negatives were never printed, until a Chicago born collector named John Maloof obtained some of Maier's images through an auction. Maier's images were published online by Ron Slattery, however at first the work received little acknowledgement. In 2009, after Maier's death, Maloof uploaded a Flickr website. Since her sudden rise to fame, Maier has gotten a documentary named 'Finding Vivian Maier', which premiered at Toronto film festival.
What I really love about Maier's images is how there is a story to every single of her images. I also love Maier's confidence of taking images of random people around the cities she visits. My personal favourite is the bottom-left one as I love how she has used the shadows.
Ilse Bing -
Ilse Bing was born on the 23rd of March 1899 in Frankfurt, Germany. She passed away on the 10th of March 1998 in New York, USA. Bing was very well educated with a lot of in interests in Art and Music. She studied mathematics in Frankfurt and moved to Vienna to study Art History. She also begun an architecture course. Her move from Frankfurt to the avant-garde Paris in 1930. She produced images in the genre of Photo-Journalism, architectural photography and fashion. She was highly respected of her use of light, unusual cropping and geometries. Her rapid rise to fame made her well known for using an advanced Leica camera. This gave her the name the 'Queen of Leica' from a critic of photography.
What I really love about Bing's and the other photographers work is the natural positioning and lighting of every image. My personal favourite is the one of the three dogs as the alignment of the dogs and the shadows all combine together to create a perfect composition.
My Photos -
I took some great images and some bad ones. On the darker days of the two, I took my images mostly of reflections due to the lack of shadows. But on the sunnier days, I took many pictures presenting my shadow. I also took one of a shadow and a reflection. I feel like I could have taken more images, especially more daring ones that step out of my comfort zone. I could have photoshopped in multiple shadows. I could have added more interesting reflections using light to enhance the reflection.
WWW / EBI -
WWW - This is my personal favourite as I really like the composition and how I have used the walkway to create a shadow, behind my own shadow. I also really like this images as my silhouette is not centred and is slightly titled, with the fence of walkway being diagonal slicing across the frame.
(Top Image) EBI - This is my least favourite as you can see too much of my face. I also think that the framing and composition is poor and my reflection is slightly blurred, I expect the blur but not to that extent. I believe I could have improved it by covering my face with the camera more.
(Bottom Image) |
Collage Selfies -
WWW - I had a good idea and I had a few very nice results. I feel like I chose a good selection of colours that all worked really nicely together. I also like some where I used images not taken by myself added a whole new dimension to my work.
EBI - I feel like I could have improved my work by again (like my selfies) by stepping outside of my comfort zone, experimenting with new ideas. I feel like I could have also used some more adventurous colours, such as cyan, magenta and orange.
EBI - I feel like I could have improved my work by again (like my selfies) by stepping outside of my comfort zone, experimenting with new ideas. I feel like I could have also used some more adventurous colours, such as cyan, magenta and orange.
WWW / EBI (Collage) -
Poem Examples -
CLICK IMAGES FOR BETTER RESOLUTION.
WWW - I personally really enjoyed experimenting. I like the idea that the text are my thoughts and showing another side to me. In certain images I made other things rather than myself the focus.
EBI - I could have taken more images and experimented in different ways, for example I had only just begun experimenting further by making abstract text where I highlighted select words from poem. LOUIS IS GAYYY
EBI - I could have taken more images and experimented in different ways, for example I had only just begun experimenting further by making abstract text where I highlighted select words from poem. LOUIS IS GAYYY