I've to do i self portrait for college and this wrote this long spiel that I've to put in my visual diary to go with it.
Just wondering if any one has nothing better to do would you mind reading it and seeing if you think i made right decision in the end, if i did which of three ideas at end do you think is best and if you have any other ideas? Thanks


Exercise 03- Self Portrait

Friday 14th November 2008
Ideas

The first idea I had for my self portrait was of myself taking a photograph or a picture of a mirror showing with the reflection on myself taking a picture of the camera but I thought that this idea was too simple and that maybe everyone else would immediately think of the same thing, so I quickly discarded this idea.

Then I thought of holding a picture of myself in front of my face and taking a picture of that. I also thought of trying to find a close up picture of my face from when I was a baby or a toddler and holding that in front of my face rather than a more recent picture of myself.

Then I started thinking of photographing a series of images placed in a row. Each picture would have been me as I was growing up, starting with a picture as me as a baby, and ending with a recent picture of me. I then thought of doing the same thing, only with objects rather than images. My idea was to start with a soother or baby blanket, followed by other objects to each to represent different times in my life, leading up to a Griffith College 2008 prospectus.

I decided to steer clear of that and focus on something that says something about me. I wanted to use a subtle approach to having the picture say something about me, rather than making in obvious, so I thought about framing a single part of my body. I considered both one of my eyes and my hands. I thought of my hands because they subtly tell a lot about me and I considered my eye because it’s what I see the world through.

I started thinking about showing people how I see the world, but then I figured my thoughts on stuff like global warming and poverty is properly very similar to everybody else and I started thinking of it there was anything that I see differently to others. I then thought about how everyone’s idea of how they look is different to how they really look, because they see their reflection nearly everyday, and their reflection is backwards from what they actually look like. So, I thought of taking a regular picture of myself and flipping it, to show how I see myself.

Then I thought of using Cindy Sherman’s idea of portraying myself as someone else. At first I thought of portraying myself as a character from a film. My first thought was one of the Disney princesses, or as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Then I started trying to think of something less childish and I considered Jay and Silent Bob. My idea was to take photos of myself dressed as both Jay and Silent Bob and merge the two pictures together on photoshop. I also considered portraying myself as a stereotype- either of a stereotypical Irish person or as a stereotypical college student- both involved being passed out on the floor surrounded by empty beer bottles and possibly in a pool of vomit.

I also thought of trying to show my interests in the picture. I didn’t want to use photography as one of those interests, because it’s too obvious and I don’t want to use a simple idea for the exercise, so I focused on my other interests- performing arts and travel. My idea for performing arts was my dance shoes, but again I thought this was too simple. For traveling I considered framing the image with me surrounded by an object from everywhere I’ve been to.

I was considering this, when I thought of another idea for a Cindy Sherman mimic. Since I was very young, my nickname has been Raggedy Anne, so I thought of portraying myself as a Raggedy Ann doll.

I’ve got three separate ideas for going about this:

1. My first idea is to try to make a dress and wig to take a straight forward shot dressed in them.

2. My second idea was to just make the wig and cover and to try make my face look as much like a Raggedy Ann doll as possible by painting a red triangle over my nose, covering my eyes with buttons, drawing on long eyelashes and lips and wearing bright blusher.

3. My third idea is to just shoot a my feet, wearing dolly shoes and red and white striped socks.


I’ve decided I want to use the Raggedy Ann idea, but I haven’t yet decided which of the above 3 ideas I wish to use.