A5—Reworked

Following the self-portrait that I created for Assignment 3, where I explored visually my fear of dancing, I decided to construct an image where I could again portray something that has been occupying my thoughts: aging. In this case, the issue is less one of fear and more a question of making sense of my changing place in the world. I will be eligible to retire in 2021, which still seems surprising to me. I am not yet ‘old,’ but I am clearly not a young man, either. It is the experience of ‘in-betweenness’ that I wanted to suggest in a photograph.

I am looking backward and forward at the same time: more than half of my life is behind me, but there may be several decades yet ahead. I want my viewers to ask themselves, in effect, “[…] is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?” (Szarkowski and Museum of Modern Art, 1978:25).

My starting point was Ilse Bing’s Self-Portrait in Mirrors, 1931, which seemed a clever way to ensure that the photographer is at once both viewed and viewer. Bing’s play with reflections in a self-portrait means that she can see herself, look at the viewer, and see herself being seen. Her image allows for self-examination, a subject who is not only a participant in the visual game being played, but also to a large degree the one controlling it. Bing’s self-portrait reveals the mechanics of the artifice that lies behind the image, like a magician showing how a trick works. It is the ‘knowingness’ of the picture that is so intriguing—Bing knows that the viewer is viewing her and returns the favour with confidence: “The double presence of the artist at work, and the intentness of her gaze, serves to highlight the newfound independence that women were enjoying at the time, while the prominent inclusion of the camera symbolises the burgeoning technical revolution of the period and the fresh opportunity for creative expression it enabled” (AnOther, 2016). The items scattered around the desk may appear random and casual, but the care shown in the way the shot is set up suggests that nothing has been left to chance. Bing is in charge of it all.

If Ilse Bing was direct and face-on, I was also gripped by Tracey Moffat’s Spanish Window, a large-scale photograph of the back view of a woman looking out of a window that I saw during a visit to the National Gallery of Canada. There is a calm harmony between the outdoor lighting, the palette inside the room and the tones in the woman’s hair, skin and clothes. But most striking is the sense of intruding on a private moment and the way the woman’s face is hidden. Part of Moffat’s Body Remembers series, the photograph invites the viewer to imagine what the woman is contemplating in the scene before her and what she might be remembering. The result is quietly disturbing: “It is day but the paraffin lamp is lit. Like a Magritte, there’s a sense of disquiet. The light is wrong, the day is wrong, something unseen is wrong” (Searle, 2017). Moffat stands at a threshold between interior and exterior worlds, at “the collision of looking and being looked at” (Stephens, 2019). It is an invitation to the viewer to see the world—and a family history—through Moffat’s eyes as she embodies a domestic servant, a role played by both her mother and grandmother (Tracey Moffatt: Vigils, s.d.). This is a running theme throughout much of Moffat’s work, as she slyly compels her audience to confront issues of ‘otherness’: women and girls facing male oppression, Indigenous identity and its suppression, colonialism and its aftermath, and rural versus urban experience and opportunity.

I was determined to find a way to incorporate all the elements: a back-view of the subject, a window with an exterior view, an interior, a mirror, and a gaze that confronts the viewer. According to Elina Brotherus, a subject shot from behind is an “invitation to a shared contemplation” while a subject shot head-on is a “confrontation” (Brotherus, 2015). Rather than use the mirror to catch the photographer armed with a camera, I wanted to ensure that it is the viewer who is “caught looking” (McDowell, 2008:199).

In her series “12 ans après” Brotherus’ (Elina Brotherus, s.d.) frequent use of mirror images in self-portraits serve as a visual metaphor for reflecting on her own life as she returns to a former residence. The mirror also makes explicit that the artist is playing a double-role as both the viewer and the viewed. Brotherus’ visible use of a cable release in a number of the images also makes explicit the artifice involved: I know what I’m doing, I’m showing you what I’m doing and now we both know that we know. There is apparently no mask, and that is exactly the artifice.

I aimed for a similar degree of ‘knowingness’ in my own image—the viewer and I make eye contact—but I tried to give it a twist so viewers could also believe for a moment that they are viewing me from behind, unguarded. David Campany touches on this element of awareness in his discussion of Jeff Wall’s well-known Picture for Women: “A photograph automatically produces a double of the world, a naturalistic substitute. A photo that includes a mirror doubles the double. Moreover it promises a mastering knowledge of the whole phenomenon, for photographer and viewer. The mirror image is photography made ‘self-conscious’ in a very direct, if literal, way” (Campany, 2007:23).

My self-portrait serves two purposes, then. It is an opportunity for me to explore a point in life where I feel compelled to look both forward and behind. And it is also a statement that, in carefully constructing this image, I am ready for a new stage in my development as a photographer:

[…] photographers will often seek out the camera’s own kinds of echoes in mirrors and reflections. Most point the camera at the mirror at an early stage in their exploration of the medium. It is more than just a coming to terms with the nature of the apparatus as a picturing device. While discovering what photography is for them, they attempt to confirm or recognise themselves as photographers. The two go together in a private moment of self-assertion, made public when the resulting image is fixed (Campany, 2007:23).

References

AnOther (2016) Uncovering the Critical Influence of Photographer Ilse Bing. At: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9266/uncovering-the-critical-influence-of-photographer-ilse-bing (Accessed 20/04/2020).

Brotherus, Elina (2015) “Elina Brotherus Talk,” Open College of the Arts. At: https://player.vimeo.com/video/114291781 (Accessed 25/04/2020).

David Campany (2007) ‘‘A Theoretical Diagram in an Empty Classroom’: Jeff Wall’s Picture for Women’ In: Oxford Art Journal 30 (1) pp.9–25. At: www.jstor.org/stable/4500042 (Accessed 03/05/2020).

Elina Brotherus (s.d.) At: https://camaraoscura.net/portfolio/elina-brotherus/?lang=en (Accessed 21/04/2020).

Ilse Bing. Self-Portrait in Mirrors. 1931 | MoMA (s.d.) At: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/44571 (Accessed 10/02/2020).

Masters, C. (2011) Windows in art. London: Merrell.

McDowell, K. (2008) Perverse singularity: Modernist practice and masculine subjectivity. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. At: http://ucreative.summon.serialssolutions.com

Searle, A. (2017) ‘Tracey Moffatt review – horrible histories from Australia’s Venice envoy’ In: The Guardian 10/05/2017 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/10/tracey-moffatt-my-horizon-australia-pavilion-venice-biennale (Accessed 31/05/2020).

Stephens, A. (2019) Tracey Moffatt show at Tarrawarra a window on memory and loss. At: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tracey-moffatt-show-at-tarrawarra-a-window-on-memory-and-loss-20190318-h1ci5q.html (Accessed 11/02/2020).

Szarkowski, J. and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (eds.) (1978) Mirrors and windows: American photography since 1960. New York : Boston: Museum of Modern Art ; distributed by New York Graphic Society.

Tracey Moffatt: Vigils (s.d.) At: https://museemagazine.com/culture/2018/5/8/tracey-moffatt-vigils (Accessed 31/05/2020).

A5—Initial thoughts

CAN has been an opportunity for me to take a fresh look at image-making and to explore themes that I have not touched before. It has been a bit of a surprise for me that identity has come to the fore, as it has in Assignments 2 and 4. Rather than turn to another broad theme at the end of CAN I am inclined to push myself with another aspect of the identity question.

Assignment 2 looked at the issue of family origins — most of us are interested in where we came from and founding myths can be very powerful. Assignment 3 touched on a closely-held fear that has dogged me since I was a teenager. Even Assignment 4, my reading of Paul Strand’s Wall Street, 1915, was an identity exploration of sorts: a chance to delve into the reasons why the photograph has captured my imagination for so long.

For Assignment 5, I have decided to touch on the issue of aging. I am at a point in my life where I have noticed that I am thinking about the next stage of my career and am finding that the attitudes of others around me are changing subtly. Some of it comes from personal interest while some of it appears to be rooted in stereotypical expectations or even forms of ageism.

I discussed a few possible approaches with my tutor during our last Zoom meeting and he was encouraging. He was also good enough to follow up with some examples from Hannah Starkey, Larry Sultan and Rembrandt that I can use for reference and/or guide points for research.

One of the key elements that I took away from my earlier CAN assignments and from my tutorials is the need to pay close attention to every element in the frame of a constructed image. Just as I labour over each aspect of an image I am reading, I need to give the same consideration to every piece of the image I am building: lighting, props, costumes/clothes, colours, foreground, background, gesture, expression, etc. I am essentially dressing a set for a one-frame play.

A3—Re-shoot

Following the comments I received from my tutor, I re-shot A3. I am submitting just the following image for this assignment as I feel that it portrays well what I wanted to say about how I feel.

The thought of dancing turns me white cold with fear

The eight images in the thumbnail below were taken during the re-shoot for A3. In the first three I am wearing a light jacket and boots so that I could test my set-up without being bothered too much by the cold. Once I knew it was working, I took a further five frames in quick succession—the temperature was -10C and I was wearing a cotton shirt and standing in snow with bare feet. I did not want to linger and, by this time, I knew what I was after.

A3—Reflection

Demonstration of technical and visual skills

I am satisfied with the results I achieved for A3.
The technical and visual skills required to realise these images were a little different from what I have done with other exercises and assignments. Most important, I was the subject, so I had to work to ensure that I would remain in focus while moving around in front of the camera. I accomplished this in a few ways:
- by setting the camera on a two-second timer to give me enough time to get in front of the lens;
- by setting the aperture on the lens (f/8) to give sufficient depth of field;
- by using a gel-coloured flash, remotely-triggered and fired into a reflective umbrella to freeze motion; and
- by ensuring that there was no ambient light in the room, which meant that the flash was the only source of light.

Quality of outcome

I am pleased with the results I achieved, in that they represent well what I had in mind once I landed on my concept / approach.
The images are sharp; I had enough exposures to give me a good selection of photographs for the series; and the colours from the gel-covered flash gave some extra dynamism to the images.
The four images I chose for the final set also compliment each other well in terms of movement, position of the subject, and the colours chosen for each.
If I were to do this again, though, I might look at letting a little ambient light into the frame and dragging the shutter. This would introduce more movement into the frame, but it might take away from the over all effect.

Demonstration of creativity

The creativity for me in this assignment does not lie in the techniques required to produce the images. Taking pictures with a flash in an umbrella is not that complicated, once you get a feel for what you are doing.
Instead, I believe that the creativity lies mostly in the desire to use the assignment to support some personal growth. I realise that a fear of dancing—coupled with a real dislike of pictures of myself—may seem trivial to some people, but it is significant for me. (I am guessing that many of those same people might run from speaking opportunities, while I have little difficulty addressing hundreds of people.)

Context

The reflection I did for this assignment continues the direction in some sense from A2 (which I will almost certainly rework in light of the feedback I received from my tutor), where I looked at issues of personal identity through a collection of artefacts.
In A3 I have again turned to personal exploration, although this time the imagery involves me directly rather than a series of proxies.
At the beginning of the feedback I received from my tutor in response to A2, he included the following quotation:

‘If I throw a stick in one direction in a field it does not mean that I am obliged to
retrieve it like a dog. If I throw a stick it is to eliminate or exclude this direction, to
feel free to research what is not indicated yet.’
Tomasz Wendland (2008)

I interpreted that as encouragement to resist following my initial leanings for A3 and to open up a new range of possible directions by deliberately turning from familiar things. Looking at my self as the subject of my photographs is something that I have never done, so being pushed was good for my growth as a photographer (and perhaps as a person). Rather than taking on a self-portrait in a relatively distant or even impersonal way, I decided to tackle a discomfort and a fear head-on.
I have also been glad of the opportunity to explore more personal topics in what I hope has been a positive way. Everyone faces challenges in the course of life—some much more so than others—but it has bothered me that so many personal artistic explorations seem to be negative in nature. I think I would have real difficulty sustaining a personal project that focused on the negative and I would also be reluctant to share it with others. I want to grow and I am usually better fed turning outward and forward, rather than focusing inward and down.
This does not mean that I cannot learn from and appreciate the work of artists whose work is darker—it just means that I may not want to follow their examples.

Reference

Wendland, T. (2008) ‘THE UNKNOWN: That what I say is not what I mean’ [Ph.D. Dissertation] Dartington College of Arts, University of Plymouth. At: https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/2796 (Accessed 24/11/2019).

A3—Self-portrait submission

This self-portrait is a departure for me in a number of ways. Challenged by my tutor to reveal a side of myself that might be surprising to people who know me, I decided to accept the challenge in a way that I hope might be positive for me.

I am not at all a shy person, but there are two things about me that most of my acquaintances do not know: 1) I have run from having my picture taken since I was a child, and; 2) the thought of dancing in front of others puts my stomach in knots. Although I have loved photography since I received my first camera at the age of 12, there are very few pictures taken of me since I was a teen. And, although I love music, I have avoided social situations where there was even the slightest chance that I might be expected to dance. I have been particularly ashamed of the fear of dancing and am aware of the fun that I have likely missed because of it. And I know that my wife has probably paid a price, too.

I have always been taken by Ilse Bing’s famous Self-Portrait in Mirrors, 1931 and originally thought of using her approach both to look out at the viewer and to reflect on my own self-consciousness. I soon realised, however, that I did not want to continue to focus on my feelings of embarrassment but to push myself beyond them and bring two difficult things in my life together. I could have produced a self-portrait that showed the feelings or impacts associated with a fear of dancing, but I wanted to resist and do something more positive for myself. It would be a series of images me having fun moving to music and be much less formally composed than Bing’s image. And if dancing turns me white with fear, well, I would counter that with coloured flash in keeping with all the colours expressed in music.

So my series is not about looking back or even about justifying or exploring where I may be now, but more about who I aspire to become. Less someone bound or shaped by fear, and more someone ready to look forward and grasp a challenge. My self-portraits are not the artful pictures of a youthful dance master like Mickael Jou, but the clumsy first moves of a middle-aged man.

I am under no illusion that this is the end of the matter, but it is a small step.

A small dance step.

References

Dance Self-Portraits by Mickael Jou • Design Father (2015) At: https://www.designfather.com/dance-self-portraits-mickael-jou/ (Accessed 23/11/2019).

Ilse Bing. Self-Portrait in Mirrors. 1931 | MoMA (s.d.) At: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/44571 (Accessed 23/11/2019).

Mickael Jou (s.d.) At: https://mickaeljou.com/?og=1 (Accessed 23/11/2019).

A3—Rethinking, approach and contact sheets

After discussing a possible direction for A3 with my tutor and being encouraged to show a side of myself that people might not know, I went back to the drawing board.

I have to admit that it took some time to identify a new path. To my mind, it is a fairly rare thing for someone in middle age to reveal something new about themselves. Family, friends and colleagues have had years to get know me and the chance to surprise them becomes less likely the more time goes by. Nevertheless, it dawned on me that there might be one thing about me that would surprise people: my terrible fear of dancing. I have a reputation for being a competent, confident person who remains calm under pressure and thinks well on his feet. I am not shy: I am comfortable leading large teams, teaching adults and speaking in front of hundreds of people. And I absolutely love music and I feel its power—when I’m by myself. But ask me to put music and movement together in front of other people and I turn white with cold fear.

So that would be it. But I wanted to do it on my own terms: rather than making a self-portrait just about fear, I would do a series on where I could get to. I’ve been ashamed of this long enough and resent both the way I have allowed it to make me feel and the fun I’ve missed out on.

I decided to do a series of me dancing and even looking a bit silly as I enjoyed music on my iPod. I would incorporate colour and use flash to freeze my movement. I darkened the room so that the flash would be the only light and give me greater control, both of the exposures I want to use and to strengthen the effect of the gels on the flash. I had originally thought of using a single exposure or perhaps of blending a number of exposures to give a greater sense of movement but, in the end, I opted to go with four exposures—one from each of the different coloured gels I had used.

Here are the contact sheets from the series I took:

Exercise—Self-absented portraiture

Maria Kapajeva

Born Estonia, lives and works in London
BA in Economics, University of Tartu; BA in Photography at The University for the Creative Arts; MA in Photography at The University of Westminster.
Fellow of HEA, teaches at UCA (Farnham)
Cultural identity and gender issues within historical and contemporary contexts.
Works with stories and histories from collection of vernacular photography. Also works with video, installation and object-based art.

Nigel Shafran

UK, 1964– .
Photographer and artist. Work exhibited at Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Worked as a fashion photographer in 1980s before turning to fine art.
Publications include Ruthbook (1995), Dad’s Office (1999), Edited Photographs 1992-2004 (2004), Flower’s for ___ (2008), Ruth on the phone (2012), Teenage Precinct Shoppers (2013), Visitor Figures (2015), Dark Rooms (2016), and The people on the street (2018).
” In photographing everyday elements and details, Shafran captures something of the fabric of our lives, the background noise that usually goes unnoticed, but which shapes us and our fate” (Everyday beauty, 2018).

Response

Yes, it did surprise me when I saw the image from Washing Up in the course manual that the photographer was a man. There is no reason why a man should not take such a picture, but I think it is fair to say that women photographers have more often taken pictures in the home, especially those connected with domestic tasks or rituals.

I am not entirely sure how to answer whether gender contributes to an image, except that I suppose it must: perhaps not so much in the choice of subject matter or technique, but more in the way that every creation springs from a context (the artist as a gendered creator) and is viewed within another context or narrative (the viewer as a gendered interpreter). I don’t think that this automatically determines the intent or the understanding of a work, but it would be hard to deny the presence or influence of gendered constructs.

The line of questioning in the course manual could serve to underline that viewers of the images may make certain assumptions about the person who created them and the situation within which they were created. Perhaps. What is more interesting to me is how humans are present to us in the things of their lives and in the way they order them. (Is it a clean kitchen? Is it orderly? What kind of food is prepared there? What social standing might be implied by the setting? Are there other clues as to the people who live here?) The setting is the stage of domestic life and it invites speculation about the actors who set the scene and perform there.

So yes, these are interesting still life compositions. I am naturally curious about other people and how they live. What are they telling me? How are they like me? How are they different from me?

References

Everyday beauty with Nigel Shafran (2018) At: https://www.bjp-online.com/2018/05/shafraninterview/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

FK Artist – Maria Kapajeva (s.d.) At: https://fkmagazine.lv/2016/09/22/fk-artist-maria-kapajeva/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Interview with Maria Kapajeva (s.d.) At: https://ostseemag.com/portfolio/interview-maria-kapajeva/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Maria Kapajeva (s.d.) At: https://fastforward.photography/people/maria-kapajeva/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Maria Kapajeva | (s.d.) At: http://www.mariakapajeva.com/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Nigel Shafran (s.d.) At: http://nigelshafran.com/ (Accessed 11/11/2019a).

Nigel Shafran (s.d.) At: https://frieze.com/speaker/nigel-shafran (Accessed 11/11/2019b).

O’Hagan, S. (2018) ‘The photobook about homelessness – without a single rough sleeper’ In: The Guardian 11/12/2018 At: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/dec/11/photobook-homelessness-rough-sleeper-nigel-shafran-people-street (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Watch: BPB16 Nigel Shafran in conversation with Francis Hodgson (2017) At: https://photoworks.org.uk/watch-bpb16-nigel-shafran-conversation-francis-hodgson/ (Accessed 11/11/2019).

Exercise—Childhood memory

I have chosen to recreate a memory of something that happened to me when I would have been about eight years old. I was with some neighbourhood friends and we were rolling down the sides of the drainage ditch that ran behind our houses. It was late fall, so the ditch was dry and full of grasses and weeds.

I decided to go everyone one better and rolled backwards instead of forwards, only to find myself stuck at the bottom with my feet in the air and the zipper of my jacket stuck to the skin of my throat. Any movement pulled on the zip fastener and cause it to bite deeper into my skin. So I lay there until one of my friends was able to get my dad to come and help me out.

Children get into these sorts of scrapes all the time, but what stayed with me was the sense of how time slowed as I waited and gazed up at the sky through my feet. And the mix of feelings: the zip hurt my neck and I was afraid to move, upside-down and disoriented, a bit panicky but calm and observant all at once. I have since felt that unreal mix at other times of crisis: panic and calm, urgent action and slow motion.

I created this image fairly literally, but these are an adult’s legs and feet, not a child’s. And I believe that the image (and the experience behind it) point to the disorientation we can feel on two levels, both physical and emotional: our world has been turned on its head.

I decided to give the image a title because that has often been my experience—in the midst of disruption, help is coming. It is rare to be completely alone, but the hard part is being patient while waiting.

The photograph does resemble my memory in many physical respects, but the most important part for me is the feelings it summons and the upset perspective one has. I think most viewers, even if they had no sense of the story that gave rise to the image, would recognize that all is not well with the figure who belongs to the legs and feet. If anything, the picture could be seen as a capture of someone who is in the middle of falling, with a blank sky and the hint of a roofline above.

Exercise—Masquerade

Nikki S. Lee (Kye-Chang, South Korea; 1970– )

Born and BFA in Photography at Chung-Ang College of the Arts, University of Korea, 1993; moved to NYC for MFA and stayed. New York University, New York, 1997–99; Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, 1994–96.
Works in both photography and film. Interest in notions of identity, particularly identity that is dynamic and negotiated through relationships.
Performance art.
Projects series (1997–2001) on sub-cultures, including yuppies, swing dancers, drag queens, hip hop fans, and senior citizens recorded with a point-and-shoot camera, wielded by a member of the selected group or a passerby.
Parts series (2002–2005), in which she appears in ‘candid’ snapshots with only parts visible of a male from a failed relationship.
Directed 2006 film, “A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee,” in which played two fictional versions of herself.
Lee’s work makes me think of what might happen if Cindy Sherman got out of the studio and interacted with people. There is just as much reliance on costume, but less so on makeup and prosthetics. But Sherman relies on creating an artificial world whose artifice is often obvious, while Lee works to fit in with the an existing group or context and draws on her resemblance to them for effect. If she is interested in confronting the viewer, she goes about it in a much subtler way.

Trish Morrissey (Dublin, Ireland; 1967– )

Combines performance and self-portraiture with photography and film.
Uses archives to explore class, family relationships, body and gesture, gender and role-play, power and control and what it means to be human.
Trish Morrissey: a certain slant of light at Francesca Maffeo Gallery in June 2018. Thirteen photographs and two films of archive material gathered about the last two female residents of Hestercombe House, a stately home and gardens in Somerset, England.
Solo publications: Seven Years (2004) and Front (2009).
Featured in The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton; Vitamin Ph, Survey of International Contemporary Photography; Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography, by Susan Bright; Photography and Ireland by Justin Carville, and Making It Up: Photographic Fictions by Marta Weiss.

Tracey Moffatt (Brisbane, Australia; 1960– )

BA in visual communications from the Queensland College of Art, 1982. Honorary doctorate, 2004.
Uses text, collage, and set design to explore childhood trauma, Aboriginal people, and popular Australian culture.
Series Up in the Sky (1997) portrays violence in an outback town. “There is a storyline, but there isn’t a traditional beginning, middle, and end.”
Over 100 solo exhibitions.
Represented Australia in the 2017 Venice Biennale with My Horizon.
Works held in the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.

Reflection

I don’t know that Lee’s work is necessarily voyeuristic or exploitative. It seems as though she introduces herself as an artist to her new groups and spends quite a bit of time with them. The whole exercise could be read as both a comment on her own identity as well as that of the group: the group has established a set of codes by which they can show belonging and identify one another (a social construction); and Lee, by adopting their identity and being accepted by the group indicates just how malleable her own identity can be (another social construction).

As for Morrissey’s request, it might depend upon my frame of mind at the moment and how she presented herself / her project. I do not usually enjoy having my picture taken, but I might go along with it for a laugh or for the novelty. And given that I take more and more pictures of strangers myself—sometimes with, sometimes without their permission—I feel that I have less and less right to deny them the same access to me. It would be hypocritical of me, so I am gradually agreeing to lower my guard. I also recognize that we live in a surveillance society and the idea that we have a veto over the capture of our image is largely an illusion. We are being imaged all the time, for all sorts of purposes, so a snap for a random photographer or tourist seems relatively benign.

References

Museum of Contemporary Photography (s.d.) At: https://www.mocp.org/detail.php?t=objects&type=browse&f=maker&s=Lee%2C+Nikki+S.&record=1 (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Nikki S. Lee (s.d.) At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/nikki-s-lee (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Nikki S. Lee | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/nikki-s-lee/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Nikki S. Lee | National Museum of Women in the Arts (s.d.) At: https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/nikki-s-lee (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Tracey Moffatt (s.d.) At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/tracey-moffatt (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Tracey Moffatt | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/tracey-moffatt/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Tracey Moffatt | MCA Australia (s.d.) At: https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/tracey-moffatt/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Tracey Moffatt :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW (s.d.) At: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/moffatt-tracey/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Tracey Moffatt – Under the Sign of Scorpio, 2005 – Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (s.d.) At: https://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/news/releases/2005/07/10/94/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Trish Morrissey (s.d.) At: https://www.trishmorrissey.com/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Trish Morrissey | LensCulture (s.d.) At: https://www.lensculture.com/trish-morrissey (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Trish Morrissey | photoparley (s.d.) At: https://photoparley.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/trish-morrissey/ (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Trish Morrissey — Francesca Maffeo Gallery (s.d.) At: https://www.francescamaffeogallery.com/trish-morrissey (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Trish Morrissey Photographer | Biography & Information | wotfoto.com (s.d.) At: https://wotfoto.com/photographers/trish-morrissey (Accessed 26/10/2019).

Exercise—autobiographical self-portraiture

Francesca Woodman

American (1958–1981) photographer, largely black-and-white self-portraits.
Produced over 800 untitled prints. Numerous posthumous solo exhibitions, estate managed by parents.
Rhode Island School of Design, moved to New York in 1979 to pursue a career in photography.
Influenced by Surrealism and Conceptual Art, her work often featured recurring symbolic motifs such as birds, mirrors, and skulls. Medium format.

After viewing a lot of the images produced by Francesca Woodman during her brief photographic career, I don’t find much warrant for Susan Bright’s conclusion (2010) that Woodman’s work alluded “to a troubled state of mind.” It could be that Bright has chosen to concentrate on some of the darker images that Woodman produced, particularly those containing masks, those that blur her identity (sometimes by covering her face or by blurring herself through motion), or those containing eels.

Instead, I wonder if Bright is doing a sort of post hoc interpretation or confirmation bias with Woodman’s pictures, starting with the artist’s suicide and reading it back into her work. If one was not aware of how Woodman died it would be possible to see many of her images as the products of a young woman discovering the different sides of her personality, her sexuality and her humour. Not all of the self-portraits are cheery, but nor is anyone, all the time.

At the same time, I imagine that any viewer of a body of work is capable of doing just the same thing: starting with a fixed judgement about its meaning and then (not surprisingly) finding evidence for that fits.

Elina Brotherus

Helsinki, Finland (1972– ). M.S. in analytical chemistry, University of Helsinki in 1997. M.F.A. in photography, University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Member of the Helsinki School. Lives and works in Finland and France.
Work is primarily autobiographical. Documented infertility and “involuntary childlessness” in 2011-2015 series “Carpe Fucking Diem” and 2009-2013 “Annonciation.”

Gillian Wearing

Birmingham, (1963– ). Chelsea School of Art, bachelor of technology degree in art and design, 1987. BFA Goldsmiths, University of London, 1990.
Documents everyday life through photography and video. Individual identity, the private and the public spaces. Distorted identity, role playing, masks.
Work with strangers. Confessional art (Signs). Mock anthropology.

Reflection

My thinking about self-portraiture has changed over the last few years, perhaps as a result of the learning journey I’ve been on with the OCA. I admit that I suspected self-portraits were often a sign of narcissism or self-obsession, but I better appreciate that there can be a number of motives for using oneself as a model: the wish to explore questions of personal or group identity; delving into psychology; using oneself as a proxy for humans as a whole; or practical issues of cost or access to models (I understand that Cindy Sherman often photographs all through the night, making minute change after minute change to makeup, costumes and sets as part of her process—this wouldn’t necessarily lend itself to working with live models). So yes, an element of self-indulgence could be present in self-portraiture, but not necessarily. (Is an element of self-indulgence present in every of art? Why create at all, except for some satisfaction of the self?)

After looking through dozens of images created by Woodman, Brotherus and Wearing, I am intrigued. The three have not created Instagram selfies to sell a product, or sex, or their own ego brand, but are clearly involved in pursuing something more serious. It’s not always clear to me what that something is, but I know that I would like to see more, rather than less. If anything, I admire their vision, drive and imagination, and wonder how I might approach my own self-portrait for A3 (I have an idea already).

I am not entirely sure what the significance of Brotherus’ nakedness is. In some cases, it may connote a vulnerability or honesty in that there is no protective layer between her, the camera and viewer. Given the attention that she pays to clothing and props in many of her self-portraits, I wonder if her deliberate choice of when to be naked has an anonymising function: clothes are often markers of age, status, occupation, etc., so removing them compels the viewer to see Brotherus as a broadly representing woman/women (if sex/gender is what she is trying to convey) or simply as a human. In one interesting series, Brotherus appears clothed beside an older, naked man (identified as her teacher), while she appears naked in two images with people identified as her students—I wondered if the progression from clothed student to naked teacher implied a gradual ‘unveiling’ of the artist within, or if there was some sort of transference from teacher to student… or perhaps both.

References

Bright, S. (2010) Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography. Cited in Boothroyd, S. (2014) Photography 1: Context and Narrative. Open College of the Arts, p.74.

Elina Brotherus (s.d.) At: http://www.elinabrotherus.com (Accessed on 2 October 2019a)

Elina Brotherus (s.d.) At: https://martinasbaek.com/artists/elina-brotherus/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019b)

Francesca Woodman | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/francesca-woodman/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Francesca Woodman – 97 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/francesca-woodman (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Francesca Woodman Photography, Bio, Ideas (s.d.) At: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/woodman-francesca/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Gillian Wearing (s.d.) At: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/Gillian-Wearing (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing | artnet (s.d.) At: http://www.artnet.com/artists/gillian-wearing/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing – 29 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy (s.d.) At: https://www.artsy.net/artist/gillian-wearing (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Gillian Wearing Art, Bio, Ideas (s.d.) At: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/wearing-gillian/ (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

LensCulture, E.B.| (s.d.) Elina Brotherus. At: https://www.lensculture.com/elina-brotherus (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Photographs tell as much about the observer as they do about their author.« (s.d.) At: https://www.collectorsagenda.com/en/in-the-studio/elina-brotherus (Accessed on 2 October 2019)

Searching for the Real Francesca Woodman (s.d.) At: https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/7-francesca-woodman/ (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Tate (s.d.) Finding Francesca – Look Closer. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/francesca-woodman-10512/finding-francesca (Accessed on 26 September 2019)

Tate (s.d.) Gillian Wearing CBE born 1963. At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/gillian-wearing-cbe-2648 (Accessed on 2 October 2019)