Ty's Photographic Education
Lesson 1: Self Portraits
This is taken from my photoblog (link at bottom), so if you already read that, parts may sound familiar. I placed here in case you didn't see it there, but I also added a bit more for an extra treat.
I started out my photo blog with the self-portrait above so you could see the real me. As you can see, I don't like to reveal the real me in perfect focus, which should reveal part of the real me to you.
I wanted to create a photo blog to post some of my photos with a bit of explanation about them. Being a photographer, I don't usually like to talk about my photographs, but my split personality also fancies itself as sort of a writer, so I find myself on occasion wanting, or at least willing to explain a little something about a certain photograph. I do this mostly for the younguns (or "young ones" if you are not from the south) in hopes they might possibly pick up a pointer or two or maybe some inspiration from somewhere. Hey, you never know.
In this particular self-portrait image, it's a photograph of me. I find that it is usually important when you are doing a self-portrait to include a portrait of yourself occasionally. That kind of sounds like a ridiculous statement, but actually I don't think a self-portrait necessarily must contain a picture of yourself. It doesn't necessarily have to be in focus, make sense, or reveal anything like your entire body, but it should at least be a photograph that either includes a piece of you, a piece of something in your life, (which would include a belief, a love, a secret desire, or some other made up stuff), or perhaps even a piece of a piece of your life.
For example, I can take a photograph of my truck showing my bumper stickers and still consider that a self-portrait because it reveals a lot about me. If you wanted to get real technical about it, you might say every single photograph I take in a way is either a self-portrait or related to a self-portrait since I made all the decisions involved. But I won't get that crazy here.
A self-portrait is sort of like how you have to love yourself before you can love others. If you want to take photographs of people, you should be able to photograph yourself first. I am in 3 separate groups of photographers with experience levels ranging from beginner to very seasoned professional artists. Probably about 90% of them have trouble photographing people. Heck, a lot of them (myself included) have trouble talking to people, so of course they would be uncomfortable photographing them. I contend that if they begin with doing many self-portraits, it should help teach them things about themself, wich should also help with social and photographic skills.
I used to photograph a lot of trees. I did so because I like trees and I still photograph them, but I also did so because they were more reliable than people. A tree is always there, always ready, never moves, never changes expression, never complains, never wants anything from me, is willing to pose for as long as I want to photograph it. I turned my attention to self-portaits for some of the same reasons.
I'm getting more used to it, but I still maintain that I prefer to be behind the camera than in front of one. I hated to see photos of myself, mostly because I'm realistic and I know I'm not that much to look at. I eventually got to the age where I didn't care and dropped my Barbie and Ken attitude.
I can't afford professional models so I photograph regular people instead. Hanging out with regular people, I found that so many others don't really care for getting their picture taken either. I found that society pressure of good looks has effected way too many people. There are so many people out there with low self-esteem and think they are not beautiful enough to be photographed because they are being raised in this crazy world today with all it's pressures of beauty and glamour. I have to help regular folks and show them that it doesn't matter how ugly they are. God created us all to be different and you should be proud that you are. So I began with myself to show that.
Because I hated to be in pictures, I turned the camera around and pointed it right at my face. I began doing self-portraits and then I began adding other people to them to show them it was ok, we were in it together. I started a series I call "Me and..." where I get right next to someone, hold out my camera and turn it on us for a picture. I'm sure you've either seen pictures like that or done it yourself, it's not hard. I started doing that years ago for the reasons stated above and continue as often as possible.
I find it helps for a couple reasons. It's very casual and relaxing, nothing serious. It shows how much fun we can have doing "goofy" pictures of ourselves and that I am willing to do anything I ask them to do because I have already told them how much I hate being in front of the camera also. Getting in close together like that drops their defenses and immediately helps our repor. And it helps move on to the next step of turning the camera on them without me in it.
Besides helping with portraits of other people, doing the "Me and..." series helped me to move on to more serious self-portraits like the one above.
A self-portrait really depends on how much you want to reveal about yourself in that one particular image. Take for example the image of myself above. In that one image that doesn't show much of me, I am revealing many things such as listed below.
The visual facts that I reveal: I am male, good-looking, have a little age to me, have at least some dark hair on my head, including facial hair, wear glasses, wear a hat, have a bluish or grey shirt, might sometimes wear a button-down shirt over a t-shirt, have a nose, an ear, at least one eye and a half lip.
The inferred assumptions you might make from the photograph: I probably think I'm somewhat creative, and I just might be. I might be a photographer or at least know how to use a camera. I might have some sort of fancy photographic equipment that the average Joe might not have (in this case a pinhole camera). I might be kind of a "serious photographer" or "artistic photographer." I'm probably fun to be with, funny, and open-minded. I like to experiment and try new things, so I must be adventurous. If I'm that, I'm probably an "out-doorsy" kind of guy and would prefer to go on a hike through the mountains than hang out playing video games in my room. If I'm old enough, I may have been some sort of hippie or radical type.
I could go on, but I think you should get the point by now. If not, the point is that I don't reveal much of my physical self in this self-portrait, but if you were willing to take the time to look at it, and maybe think about it for a minute, you would see that I actually reveal a lot about myself, which is the point of a portrait.
A portrait should reveal things about the subject, and often reveals things about the photographer also. The more portraits you look at of the same person, the more you should be able to find out about them. In a self-portrait, the photographer reveals even more because they are both the subject and the revealer.
Anyone who does self-portraits is going to do them differently. My personal challenge with self-portraits is to slowly reveal a little more, but always leave some out. In my self-portait above, I am showing that I do not like to spoon-feed the viewer. I'll show you a little bit, but I'm not going to show you everything you may want to know with a single image. You are just going to have to come back again if you want to see or learn more - whether that is back to my website, over to the next page of a book, to the next slide in a slideshow, or whatever. I don't want you to quickly glance and then move on. I give a lot of thought to (most of) my work, so I hope that you take at least a little time to look it over and see what you can learn from it. I'm sure I'll talk more about this in lessons to come.
I don't like to expose myself so much, but I am willing to do it if it helps somebody learn and become a better photographer or better person. That's just how I am and how I hope to be with my photo blog. I don't really want to talk about my photographs and there are certain things I would rather not reveal, but I will in hopes that maybe someday someone who sees it may possibly learn something, be inspired, or at least have a brief relief from a stressful reality.
I hope you enjoy (and maybe learn). Feel free to give feedback (on my photoblog).