Avoid shooting head shots for self portraits. Making evocative character sketches is a better goal. To do this place yourself in some environment that makes sense. Create a sense of SPACE. Then include the possibility for something to happen or provide evidence that something has already happened in that space. This creates a sense of TIME. Time can extend into the past as memories, or extend into the future as dreams and desires. It can even be a feeling of timelessness, suspended time. The final step is to inhabit that spatial and temporal environment with relations of the personal kind, or it can even be about the absence of people. As long as it exudes a PRESENCE.
All of these should just be hinted at, however. There has to be a sense of MYSTERY. This can be achieved using closeness, angle of view and other visual tools we have already learned about. If too much is revealed, however, and the photo’s content is easily readable, your viewers will not stay long. Again, singular objects in a static space with no 'feel'are not interesting. You have to give them something to ponder, to evaluate. Present a set of clues for them to chew on. If they get something that is even somewhat close to your intention, then there is communication. Communication indicates that there is a resonance between you and your viewer, an overlapping relationship between your lives. This sometime taps into the ‘Collective Unconscious’. [Carl Yung]
The final element is great LIGHT. One convenient tool for self-portraits is a desk lamp at 3 feet. That can produce a strong side lighting from a 'one point source'.
You almost have to set a stage (or find a location that can be a stage) and then you become an actor upon that.
Please look at the slides from another group of students in their quest to make interesting portraits and self portraits and see how they have used:
closeness (proximity),
angle of view (attitude),
a sense of place (space),
a potential for activity (time),
exuding presence (relationships),
and great light (luminance).
p.s. that last photo is extraordinary... both the text and the photo present complimentary images, neither competing with the other for attention.
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