looking back

Exploring light today, and experimenting with some self portraits.

What do you think?

cool

Excellent - love it - wouldn't change a thing ...

Matee...thanks for your cool comment.

 

K...glad you like it:-)

Linda, I love self-portraits and the implied subconscious meanings of self-portraits. I think you are developing a fan club.

 

The beauty and mystery of this image comes from its unanswered questions. Four elements dominate.

 

First the blurring of the perimeter of self into the background, which seems to possibility represent a intermingling of memory into the experience of vaguely remembered past realities or possibly a becoming of one between yourself and the surrounding universe. It questions how well you are able to separate present reality from the past and from your universality or how much of what is separated that you wish to share with or hide from the viewer.

 

Secondly the darkness; which plays well into the blurring and the difficulty of separating distinctly the truths of the past and how we rearrange those darkly veiled truths to our own ends. Again, it questions whether you are feeling of lack of clarity of the past or how much of that clarity you wish to share.

 

Third the severe cropping which possibly implies that either you feel you are unable to see yourself in your entirety or you are unwilling to expose all you see to the viewer.

 

And most interestingly, the darkness of the eyes, the only vague hint of detail to the gateway to the soul. Are you questioning your own abilities to approach your own soul or are you unwilling to have the stranger, the viewer, see too deeply into you?

 

I am a firm believer that much of the subconscious comes into play in photography, good photography, and especially in the images of ourselves that we share with others. Being below the surface we often manipulate or respond to our own images without fully understanding the underlying why. I can only guess at your motives. You may or may not recognize your motives. But I firmly believe that there is something that compels us to self-imagery as well as something that compels us to share certain of those images. There is considerable evidence of either uncertainty or hiding in this particular image.

 

This image asks lots of assumed questions, give no answers. Again, another beautifully mysterious image. Cheers, Gary

 

 

Gary, again, thank you. You have brought up some very interesting points, and a lot of food for thought. I have been going though a reinvention of myself, my life. Leaving job, home, friends and family to start over again, in a new country....willingly. The challenge of it all has manifested itself in many ways. Allowing my creatvity to surface in new directions has not been as easy as I thought!

I admire photographers who explore self-portraits; one of the hardest things to do, imo. I like the obscurity of this shot and will be interested to see if it progresses to full openness at some point as you feel more comfortable with this concept.