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25 Aug 2011

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I publish all forms of my work from client shoots, personal work and then personal work. This is because I don't see the point in producing something that is going to sit and fester on my laptop. I like what I do and I like sharing what I do but I never really thought there was too much interest in my personal work until someone said this:

"I like the more vulnerable self portraits of you theres alot of truth in them, but likewise your other ones are super strong and yeah they're cool!"

I think that's awesome! My self portraits tend to be a self indulgent need for expression and simply use photography as an emotional outlet so the fact that atleast one person actually enjoys looking at them is a complete bonus. It also got me thinking about what people see reflected in your photos. I made the comment that I simply shoot how I feel at the time so would have to make sure I catch myself at a particularly vulnerable moment but after scrolling through my self portraits to try and find examples to include in this post, I couldn't find one where I feel I look particularly vulnerable and I don't remember feeling that way when taking any of them. The closest I can probably come to it is a mini series I did last year called Midnight and even then I only see that aspect in it because i'm pretty much naked.

It also highlighted an importance of being able to create something or shoot someone in a way that represents either what you want to show or how they want to be portrayed and perhaps how difficult that can really be, a particularly relevant point for client work. I do sometimes wonder if photographers really don't get the credit they deserve with how difficult a job and responsibility that truly is. A good example of this would be when I was prepping for Geneva's shoot and the absolute importance to get her image right became apparent as a key point to the beginning of her career as a new face to the music industry.

The point of this post was simply to state that I think it's awesome that someone likes my self portraits, but as I started writing my thoughts branched out a little further to several other topics of consideration. Perhaps i'll explore them some other time.
Anticlimactic conclusion, my sincere apologies. I'll have to make up for it with some intelligent discussions soon.

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