A portrait consists of either a painting, photograph, drawing or engraving of a person, or yourself, with only the face or head and shoulders.In its simplest form it is an image of just someones face, which can just show the true likeness of someone.However a portrait does not just need to be like this and can either be realistic, abstract or representational. If looking deeper into a portrait this image could show someones identity and uniqueness through their expressions and emotions. Someones uniqueness can be shown through many aspects including: Religion, interests, traditions, family, style etc.
Self-portrait vs Selfie: A self-portrait is one you produce of yourself. With this you depict yourself in the most natural way expressing your true personality and uniqueness. However in contrast to this you have "the selfie". Although the selfie sounds like a new terminology, the first ever selfie was actually taken in 1939 by Robert Cornelius. It is taken with a smartphone which is is often shared via social media. In a selfie you have more of an influence of how you want people to perceive you through, different filters, angles, expressions and lightings. This means you can therefore shape how you want your personality to be seen as through the different selfies you produce. However 'a selfie' can also take the sort of uniqueness/originality someone has to them in order for them to fit into the mainstream side of social media. |
The shadow selfie:Vivian Maier 1975
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My shadow selfie:
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The obscured selfie:Richard Hamilton
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My obscured selfie:
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Myra Greene created portrait images of herself (mugshot),
showing different aspects of her facial features instead of a full picture of her face. She did this by photographing images of her face including:the eyes, ears, nose ,mouth and her profile. She wanted us to consider the ideas one would get from looking at these about her race identity.This could be seen through how thick the lips are or how wide the nose is.Where people could make judgements about how strong she is or what her character is like .Which she wanted to show how people judge someone's character. The context of her shoot also relates to wider issues such as Hurricane Katrina, which occurred soon after this shoot. Because of this, this is why Green then became confronted with the idea of the judgements people of colour and black people face. Greene has used the collodion process of Ambrotype on black glass in creating this work. This process links back to 1880’s which also links to the idea of slavery and race which is what Green was trying to show through using this process and is what helps to support Greene’s point about race and identity. |
Georgetown from lewis khan on Vimeo.