'self' and 'identity'... possible to portray in a photograph ?

<p>I am interested in the notions of ‘self’ and ‘identity’ represented through the photographic image, in particular in relation to ‘self-portraits’, and the many forms this can take. I thought this would be an interesting topic of discussion. Here are few questions to get you thinking…<br /> <br /> Why do we photograph ourselves ? How does photographing ourselves make us feel ? How much do we feel our identity is portrayed through a photograph ? What is our ‘identity’ even ? Is there ever really a true ‘self’ in a photograph ?...<br /> <br /> (These kinds of questions are endless, so please do make more suggestions… and some kind of answers if you can !…)</p>

<p>It's funny that this should come up at this time. I just delivered my accepted entry to a group show at the <a href="http://www.printnj.org/">Printmaking Council of New Jersey</a>. The exhibit is "Mirrord Image: A Graphic Matter" and explores "the concept of self-portraiture through print media." My entry is <a href="../photo/4582908">posted on photo.net here</a>. I made the image while sitting in my living room one morning and began exploring myself with my camera. I was attracted to this particular body element because it was somewhat ambiguous. I titled it "Not!" since people always think it is something other then what it is. Viewers bring their own obsessions into their view and tend to see it through that window. I have also photographed my feet several times. Other then these I have tended away from self-portraits as I have yet to figure out how to make successful photographs with the older film camera I use.<br>

I realize this doesn't specifically answer your questions but I hope it adds to the discussion.</p>

<p>we photograph ourselves to capture a moment. that moment might serve as a reminder in the future to us of the past or to someone who knew us.</p>

<p>it depends on how we want to feel photopgraphing ourselves. the voyeur might get a different kind of pleasure from whimsical kid pointing the camera at oneself and capturing that moment.</p>

<p>there is no identity. we sometimes see patterns around us and feel the need either to conform or to be different. each possibility creates a different identity.</p>

<p>you can't handle the truth!</p>

<p>The universe doesn't care whether you exist or not. Life has no meaning other than that which you synthesize for yourself. If a self portrait can serve as a marker or a catalyst for the context and introspection from which that meaning derives, then sure - it's valuable. It's dialog with yourself. If you show it to someone else, then it's like showing them your diary (how quaint!). But someone who's never met you will not be able to <em>know</em> you from your self portrait. Rather, they'll have read a short essay (or perhaps a one-syllable grunt) that - if it's in the same visual languate they use - might tell them a few things about what you think about yourself, or what you want them to think about you.<br /><br />And of course, it's a good way to practice lighting, since your subject will have more than the usual amount of patience.</p>

<p>I think many photographers take pictures of themselves because there is a tradition of self portraits. Such artistic traditions are of great value and influence. They can be key motivating factors.</p>

<p>I think many people doing self portraits don't think of them differently from other photos they do. In a sense any photo (self portrait or not) reveals, to a greater or lesser degree, something about the photographer. A self portrait, more than other types of photos, seems to suggest that it is starting out at least to some extent to be about the photographer, but the revelation is still a matter of degree, depending on the photographer and the situation. Self portraits can be revelations and they can also be disguises. A self portrait could hide the author, for example, out of self consciousness or even willfulness. Sometimes a self portrait is an out and out lie . . . not that there's anything wrong with that . . . art lies all the time. (A self portrait may wind up looking nothing like its creator but but may still catch an important truth about her.)</p>

<p>If a self portrait does reveal something about the photographer, it is often something less than obvious. It would take some understanding of what's significant in the self portrait, often beyond the creator's skin, features, or looks. Like most things complex, it will take reading between the lines. It may not be direct and may be more like looking in a deceptive fun-house mirror than a clear and undistorted one. A good self portrait will be universal as well as specific, transcendent as well as corporeal. The revelation, if it takes place, will likely be in the synthesis of those opposing forces and not resting comfortably on the surface.</p>

<p>Nicely put Fred. Nothing much to add other than it seems to me that it's mostly women who get renowned with their selfportraits, people like Cindy Sherman, Toto Frima and the work of Francesca Woodman who committed suicide at the age of 22 but who's work is absolutely impressive by any standard.</p>

<p><br /> "Self" and "identy" are handy concepts but they are typically no more photographically significant than passport photos.</p>

<p>Neither is as significant as the impression we make on others.</p>

<p>Others see us unaware, unposed... </p>

<p>... they see our bald spots from behind, the way we wear our clothes (not just the clothes themselves), our physical fitness, our "worst features" in light that's rarely as kind as the bathroom mirror. They see us today, not twenty years ago.</p>

<p>My self portraits have lied, making me look more like Philip Seymour Hoffman's father than my true identity: Russell Crowe.</p>

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<p>In 1975 i began a self portrait project. Every year on or around my birthday i have produced x3 images of myself. I have used polaroid, 35mm, 8x10, photobooth, video still captures, digital, b/w and color. I have tried to flatter myself and tried to expose my thinning hair and yellowing teeth. Thanks to Coplans unabashed self portrait i have also revealed my expanding waistline and shrinking appendages, ego be damned. This year i have enlisted the talent of a fellow PN photographer to produce the x3 images.<br>

Why do i photograph myself? I started the project because it occurred to me when i saw 7up by ?& Michael Apted. It became the only project that held my interest for so long. Partly due to the eclectic nature in style, technique and medium that it allowed.. Partly because i hadn't seen it done before. When i started it was often about technique. It really became a self portrait as the years passed and i began to recognize how i was changing physically and emotionally. Now it feels bigger than me and and it drives itself. <br /> I have long done portraits in 3 of other subjects in an attempt to reach a bit further than a single image allows. I have seen single images, portraits, that accomplish much depth, but find that 3 well conceived images accomplish more as a portrait. I also find that when a collection of x3 portraits are viewed, presented, together that there is a powerful energy achieved. It does not override or mean that the 3 images can be of lesser quality than any single image. In fact in my experience it is even more demanding. You must produce 3 times as many good pieces. But, it is a exquisite example of the sum of the parts is greater. The unveiling will be my self composed epitaph.<br /></p>

<p>Why? The short answer might be "For the same reason we look at ourselves in in mirrors." We are either fascinated by ourselves, simply curious, or want to know more.</p>

<p>I prefer to reveal myself through my non auro-portrait photography. There is much latitude there, and it's the basis of seeking and perhaps even obtaining an individual artistic expression.</p>

<p>"Disiderata" comes to mind regarding "self and identity" in relationship to self portraits. My self portraits have been few. Maybe because there's a feeling of comfort with who I've been at the times I chosen to do them. There's also a happiness associated with who is really captured at those particular moments.</p>

<p>I photograph myself from time to time when I experience some inner changes (excitement, joy, sorrow, loneliness, satisfaction, physical changes, or from creative reasons), or turning points to the outside world.<br>

Simply put it, I just feel need to capture myself, to create and obtain some new control over myself.</p>

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<p>Generally, I'm not overly thrilled about being photographed ("camera capture soul"). When I do photograph myself, it's usually bizarre. See <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/8346160">http://www.photo.net/photo/8346160</a></p>

<p>Whether one can photograph oneself may be a different question than whether one can photograph one's self. Answering the latter question invokes a number of issues in the philosophy of mind. </p>

<p>Also to share with friends and relatives across the continent. Couldn't really do that well more than 12 years ago. With a digital image you can have it in friends' and families' hands within a minute of snapping the image -- even those more than 1,000 miles distance. It wasn't until sometime around 1999 that this became somewhat common.</p>

<p>Couldn;t do it with film nor without the Internet.</p>

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<p>katy: "Why do we photograph ourselves ? How does photographing ourselves make us feel ? How much do we feel our identity is portrayed through a photograph ? What is our ‘identity’ even ? Is there ever really a true ‘self’ in a photograph ?... "</p>

 

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<p>I'd like to offer my views here katy in an attempt to answer your questions:<br>

I also think we photograph ourselves for reasons we photograph others (those reasons are endless and subjectively applicable, requiring exploration in essay form rather than exploration here). In brief I would suggest we do so for artistic expression, documentation and curiosity.<br>

How does it make us fee? well I think that depends on <strong>when</strong> we view that image of ourselves rather than the thought of photographing ourselves. What I mean by this is that during the process of self-portraiture, we are likely to be caught up in the technical aspects of what we are doing rather than the emotional aspects we may be trying to capture. I think only when we look back on the finished product and depending on the frame of mind with which we view ourselves, can you answer how it makes us feel (I can look at the same self porttrait with both joy and sadness)<br>

I think the level to which we feel our identity is portrayed also depends on this mind set.<br>

What is our identity? I think it's our relationship (as we perceive it) to the world we live in, the people, the places, the morals and ethics with which our immediate world functions. It is the way in which we 'identify' with everything around us including the role we play in it.<br>

As ever evolving creatures, I think a photo can never capture the 'true self'. It can only capture a glimpse of that evolution.</p>

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<p>You made some interesting comments. When I occasionally shoot a "self-portrait", it's always a fun experience, because I know that the result will be humorous, interesting, or bizarre (or all three). Again, I don't take such photographs very seriously. <br>

"What is our identity?" I'll rephrase: what is my identity? It's whatever makes me uniquely me. OK, you ask, what the heck is that? And I answer, go read centuries of western philosophy. (Most Asian philosophy cares rather little about this stuff.)</p>

<p>Self and identity can be portrayed through a photograph.<br>

Here's some proof:<br>

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/arts/design/08abroad.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/arts/design/08abroad.html</a></p>

<p>And to quote the very last sentence of this article: "They’re not really a thing apart. They’re her self-portrait. "</p>

<p>Dan:<br>

I suspect what that sentence means is that the photographer's work is a reflection of herself. That's true of any photographer's work. My photographs are a reflection of me, as yours are of you.<br>

With all due respect, your "proof" is circular. Obviously, there are many photographs called "self-portraits." Whether any one of them captures the photographer's self still is open to debate. Some hold the position that a self is an entity that exists independently of one's external appearance. Others think that such thoughts amount to unprovable nonsense.</p>

<p>I have photographed myself only twice in my entire life. However, if one were to look through my photographs (about 15,000 in total) then one would learn something about the person that took them.</p>

<p>I've been doing this alot, for a long time.</p>

<p>It started long ago as a cathartic, when I was feeling sorry for myself and need to be shaken out of my sulking by the very effective images of what a loser I looked like.</p>

<p>Then I needed a subject to try new ideas on, or when setting up a shot for a client/subject... and I give myself less trouble than any conscript might, and (more realistically) I am always available to me. This is still the main reason I do it, but I have found I actually enjoy keeping track of my aging and how I change over the years. I save the out takes from light checks on location, too, when I am the subject.</p>

<p>My wife wants me to put an exhibit up of this stuff... she thinks it's hilarious. I'm not sure if that's quite the response I'd like... but wtf. I'll keep it up till I can't make pictures anymore. Why not?</p>

<p>On a side note, I made a portrait of a friend on his 69th birthday. A stunningly handsome man who, when I showed him the Polarid (yeah, that long ago... a 665 with a killer neg) he said "Oh Tom, guess what? (What... Gene?). I am an old man. And I told him that everyone new that, except (apparently) him.</p>

<p>I see on a pretty regular basis, older guys making iditots of themselves around younger women and I think some of that is an inner vision of them selves that stopped aging somewhere around college. They deny what is revealed in the mirror every day, by engrossing themselves in detail; the beard, the hair, the clothes. And they continue to hit on girls that are grossed out by their incredible lack of self awareness.</p>

<p>I decided that day with my friend Gene that I didn't want to wake up one day with the startling realization that I was old. I'd rather keep track of what I look like and not be shocked like Dave in 2001 A Space Odessy, suddenly seeing myself sinking into my death bed, and wondering, "when did I get old?"... t</p>

<p>It's generally good that images aren't posted to threads in this forum. But this would be a good exception, to illustrate the written contributions... t</p>

<p>I have a lot of portraits and self-portraits and I must tell how my face and physiognomy was changing, specially in my twenties and now. I discovered that human face is so dynamic like emotions, and that face is changing by the emotions and by the inner state. <br>

Of course, I noticed also that in some people who are emotionally and psychologically rather stable, their faces would be static without changes. Of course, it's not so determined, rather relative. In the end it's all about how person can be open to a life, or to the changes that ones chooses.<br>

Tom,<br>

your personal story is charming.</p>

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