What is a 'selfie'?
My definition is a person taking a photograph of themselves in any location, any time and anyway they want, 'selfies' are usually posted on a social media platform for others to see. 'Selfies' are not always truthful, the viewers of the 'selfie' usually make up their own meaning/story when they don't know the truth, people like to be in power of their perception of themselves.
Official definition-
A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.
There are many ways to perceive a 'selfie', they appear like adverts for the person, they can show as much ''identity'' as you would like to share. Most 'selfies' are not even showing a real person, but a fake person you create for the world to see. 'Selfies' are commonly modified by filters, makeup, photoshop etc. I believe that 'selfies' are a concept made by society, why? because society has made 'rules' or categories for females, males and others to control how they act.
I believe that 'selfies' have become popular recently because you can express yourself any way you desire, you have a sense of freedom; all the decisions you make are YOURS. There are quite a few 'rules' to taking 'selfies', like what pose, angle and lighting you choose. People usually prefer to take 'selfies' with their faces in the middle, in daytime and sometimes with filters to add a touch of variation+irregularity.
My definition is a person taking a photograph of themselves in any location, any time and anyway they want, 'selfies' are usually posted on a social media platform for others to see. 'Selfies' are not always truthful, the viewers of the 'selfie' usually make up their own meaning/story when they don't know the truth, people like to be in power of their perception of themselves.
Official definition-
A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.
There are many ways to perceive a 'selfie', they appear like adverts for the person, they can show as much ''identity'' as you would like to share. Most 'selfies' are not even showing a real person, but a fake person you create for the world to see. 'Selfies' are commonly modified by filters, makeup, photoshop etc. I believe that 'selfies' are a concept made by society, why? because society has made 'rules' or categories for females, males and others to control how they act.
I believe that 'selfies' have become popular recently because you can express yourself any way you desire, you have a sense of freedom; all the decisions you make are YOURS. There are quite a few 'rules' to taking 'selfies', like what pose, angle and lighting you choose. People usually prefer to take 'selfies' with their faces in the middle, in daytime and sometimes with filters to add a touch of variation+irregularity.
What is a self portrait?
A portrait that an artist produces of themselves.
I was put into a group with Josh and Harry to create an exhibition with the photographs we were provided with which were taken by Vivian Maier. We were also given an A1 piece of paper which we had to pretend was a wall so we could create an exhibition. Our group had to collaborate to share our individual ideas, we all spoke, debated and finally decided. It took us a considerable length of time to settle on some ideas like the structure of the photographs, title and description. Josh had thought of making a frame type structure one each length of the page and then create a 'shattering affect' in the centre of the A1 page and we all agreed on this idea. The 'shattering affect' was based on her image 'shattered' as in daily life she considered herself as 'invisible' but when she passed away she blew up as a photographer; so we agreed to make the photographs look as if they blew up.The bottom line of photographs consist of shadows as the foreground, the photographs going up on the left hand side of the paper consist of colourful photographs. In the top right corner, Vivian Maier is looking up, we thought that this was a good idea as it suggests that she knew that she might have blown up when she died. The people closest to her believed that she might not of wanted this vast amount of fame, but when she discreetly went to France, she wrote a letter to her relative asking to work with him to get her photographs to prosper; which many people refused to believe as in New York she was obscure person.The most challenging matter was choosing the ideal name for our exhibition, i had make the decision to call it 'shadows and highlights' as that was a main theme in our exhibition, my group agreed with this name.Our exhibition was decent, certainly not 'amazing'; i believe that we could have definitely made it neater as the photographs are placed very sloppy and uneven.
We were given a black piece of card with a square cut out(viewfinders) in inspiration to Kenneth Josephson's photograph that we had previously analysed. We had to take photographs with this viewfinder, it had to be included somewhere in the photographs; in a positive or negative form. Here are my edited ad unedited photographs.
WWW: Personally, I believe this is the best photograph i have taken today because it's quite mysterious and puzzling. The more you observe this photograph, the more you find more interesting details in it. It also consists of shadows as well as reflections.
EBI: This photograph could be better if i had selected a better angle. |
WWW: I believe that this is one of my worst photographs because it is very bland, theres just nothing mystic about it.
EBI: I could have placed the viewfinder in a more enigmatic place. |
Research of abstract self portraits/selfies: Akihiko Miyoshi
1974, Japan
Born in Japan, Akihiko Miyoshi received his MFA in photography in 2005 from the Rochester Institute of Technology after leaving a PhD program in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University to pursue art. Miyoshi is an Associate Professor of photography and digital media at Reed College. His work explores the intersection between art and technology most frequently dealing with issues surrounding photographic representation.
His work has been exhibited widely including Portland, New York, Los Angeles, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and Toronto. He was named the International Award Winner of Fellowship 12 at The Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh PA, and the finalist for the Betty Bowen Award from the Seattle Art Museum in 2012 and Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2013. Miyoshi received a Hallie Ford Fellowship in 2012.
In my opinion, i believe that this is one of the best photographs that he has taken. The photograph is a mystery as we don't know exactly what he has done but we can only guess.I have taken inspiration from this photograph to make my obscure self portrait. I have gotten two different colour tapes and a clear piece of paper, then i obscured the paper with the tape in a linear way; to create a glitch type effect.
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WWW: This is in my opinion the best photographs i took today as everything is in focus, foreground and background. The framing is also nearly perfect. I like how my eyes are covered as it adds a sense of mystery.
EBI: I could have tried to not get my hands in the photograph. |
WWW: This is one of the first photographs i took today to experiment when the placing of the obscuration and the focusing.
EBI: I could have tried to harder to make everything look at least decent. |
I have decided to research abstract photography because my selfie photo-book will have a theme of abstraction.
Wikipedia definition:
Abstract photography is non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials.
The History:
The genre got a push by Surrealist Man Ray and Bauhaus leader László Moholy-Nagy, but it was really American photographer Alfred Stieglitz who took the practice to a new level. It's generally accepted that his series Music – A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs, is the first intentional set of abstract photographs. Created in 1922, this started twelve years of Stieglitz taking hundreds of cloud photographs, which he ended up titlingEquivalents.
Putting practice into theory, in his 1929 essay about the history of photography, Walter Benjamin astutely observed that abstraction and photography aren't mutually exclusive. “It is another nature which speaks to the camera rather than to the eye.” This gave further permission for artists to push the boundaries of photography, using it for other purposes outside of realism.
Abstract photography is non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials.
The History:
The genre got a push by Surrealist Man Ray and Bauhaus leader László Moholy-Nagy, but it was really American photographer Alfred Stieglitz who took the practice to a new level. It's generally accepted that his series Music – A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs, is the first intentional set of abstract photographs. Created in 1922, this started twelve years of Stieglitz taking hundreds of cloud photographs, which he ended up titlingEquivalents.
Putting practice into theory, in his 1929 essay about the history of photography, Walter Benjamin astutely observed that abstraction and photography aren't mutually exclusive. “It is another nature which speaks to the camera rather than to the eye.” This gave further permission for artists to push the boundaries of photography, using it for other purposes outside of realism.
Famous Abstract Photographs:
Velasquez'- 'Las Meninas'
In my opinion, the famous painting 'Les Meninas' is appropriately mentally challenging. At first sight, this painting looks like any other painting but the more thought and attention i contributed the more I uncovered the mystery. Firstly, my beginning theory was that the viewers (me) were the 'mirror' and the painter was painting what he was seeing on his canvas which is what we (the viewers) see. But later I discovered the mirror at the back of the room; It was clear that the item at the back is a mirror because it is reflecting light whereas paintings absorb light. In the mirror we can clearly see two people which are considered to be Philip IV King of Spain and his wife Mariana of Austria. We can tell that the place they are in is a castle or an extremely large house as the ceilings are very tall and there is multiple paintings on the walls-the first class people usually could require a big amount of paintings.
This painting links to the concept of selfies now, we use mirrors to put our reflections in a frame forever-or until deleted.
This painting links to the concept of selfies now, we use mirrors to put our reflections in a frame forever-or until deleted.
When we were given the task of adding our presence into the famous painting in a creative way, i was slightly worried as i had no idea on where to start. My first idea was to cut out all the faces, so i went with that idea. After the faces where cut out, i started to think about how i could further change the painting. So i made the decision of getting a new copy of the painting and colouring the faces in red. I put that copy of the painting under the cut out faces. I ended up with every person in the painting having a red face; i thought that this was not enough. I got another plain copy of the painting but in a smaller size and i cut out the background, i then stuck all the people below the people with the red faces, resulting in two sets of the same people but both are altered in some ways. The two sets of people suggest that there is two sets of meanings behind the painting, one being just what we see at first sight, second being the truth about the painting. The colour red represents mystery so i thought it would be perfect for this painting. The last thing i needed to do was add myself into the thing i've created, i had many ideas but i only stuck with one. I created a window out of the mirror, and i got an image of myself and stuck it underneath the window.
WWW: The photographs i have chosen to put in my photobook reflected my personality quite well i believe, i also like that i decided to make this type of book (Japanese binding) as it suits the colourful photos i have taken and theres a large sense of DIYing which brings the whole book together.
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EBI: I should of used better paper for the photographs instead of plain, thin paper. While the book was in my bag, some pages got a bit dirty; i could of definitely prevented this problem by keeping the photobook in a case or i could of carried it by hand.
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