Autoerotica
A few weeks ago, a colleague and friend messaged me on Facebook suggesting that I check out an article about the amateur photographer Yulia Gorodinski. She knew that I'd been feeling creatively exhausted of late and thought that it might:
"spark some inspiration for your self portraits..."
I was struck by several things when I read that piece, apart from the obvious fact that Yulia's self portraits are beautiful works, with that unsettling and paradoxical combination of unselfconsciousness / self-awareness that separate some from the morass of narcissism with which flickr and the blogosphere are awash.
The first was her attitude towards narcissism itself, which she acknowledges and then neatly simultaneously accepts and dismisses:
"I think people are drawn to self portraits because they are attracted to sincerity and genuineness that is in it... I agree that there is a bit of narcissism in self portraits, but people who think self portraits are solely about narcissism have a superficial view on it." Yulia Gorodinski: Retro Attack | IINSIGHT
I've often struggled with this aspect of my photographs of myself. But I found her statement on narcissism refreshing and if not conclusive, at least honest. And that's the second thing that struck me - a sense of honesty.
Now, I'm not going to claim that her photographs are documentary in intent or execution. Far from it. They're planned, staged, and exquisitely postprocessed tableaux. High artifice.
But nevertheless they strike me as extremely honest. Sincere depictions of how the artist sees herself and would like others to see her.
I found this passage in the interview particularly resonant as it matches exactly how I feel about my self portraiture:
"...I love acting and I love shooting. I have a complete control over the way I want a photograph to look like because I am the model and the photographer. I also want to have artistic pictures of myself, and because I can take a picture by myself I don't need to pay another photographer to do it for me. I often feel lonely; photography is my best friend, my medicine, and a game." (my emphasis for truth) Yulia Gorodinski: Retro Attack | IINSIGHT
The third thing I noticed was the styling and the lovely vintage feel of the images, and the fourth thing was how hot the photos are.
OK, that may not be the exact order in which I noticed things...
Sightings of the new decade
So, thanks to my friend's recomendation, I found myself inspired to set about taking the self portraits you see on this page. They're a sort of homage to Yulia's work if you like, if only in the sense that my self portraits have for the last year or so been converging on the sort of aesthetic I see in her work, and seeing her photos pushed me to explore that aesthetic more fully.
I took much greater care than I normally do in setting up the environment and lighting for these shots. I mean, it's the same space that has been seen time, time and time again, but I was never more meticulous in clearing away extraneous junk and arranging the detail of the space just so. Because getting detail wrong is what can turn a good photo into an ordinary one.
The lighting and framing were also interesting challenges. Like many self portrait photographers, I have the tendency to bluntly frame myself in the middle of a composition or to flatly light myself to try and capture all of me. Both these, I realise, have the effect of deadening the potential of the image.
On this shoot, I made more careful decisions. I was mixing several different light sources (one of which was daylight coming in from the two big windows of the room, which I wanted to use as a backlight or sidelight) and had the notion to illuminate the space rather than the subject so that I became an object in the space, rather than just the subject of the photo. Irregular and off centre compositions, especially using the rule of thirds, helped with this.
As the shoot progressed, the natural light dimmed slowly (it is winter after all) and became cooler, which started to change the tone of the images in an unanticipated way when mixed with the suddenly yellower (and relatively brighter) electric lights.
This caused me to change my framing strategy and rethink the compositions I was working with. To avoid noise and keep sharpness, I had to be bigger in the frame and stiller. This led to an unexpectedly erotic series of images towards the cold end of the shoot:
The vintage feel of these images was sought in both styling (which I was more careful than normal about - I wanted to dress to find an ideal of a vintage erotica look that I dimly recall from my youth) and in post-production. I have a standard "cross processed style" set of curves that I've been applying to my images since some time last year. I was actually pointed towards the basis of the technique by Tinchika, a fellow flickr self portraitist and ran with it from there. It forms a good basis for the vintage look.
Landscapes of myself
Truth be told, I always feel lingering dissatisfaction with my self portraits when compared to my still life and landscape images.
I know that the latter types of image are far easier to shoot than photos of people, but what I also like about landscape photography in particular is the sense of atmosphere and emptiness that can be evoked. It's just an aesthetic I really relate to, especially, I guess, as I live slap bang in the middle of one of the biggest collections of people in the world.
The styles of composition and the sense of space kind of comes naturally for me when shooting "non-people"; the most satisfying thing about this set of self portraits was that I realised that with a bit of care, I could evoke that same sensation in images that featured me.
And that is a big breakthrough, really - one that I felt I needed to write about in order to find out what it meant to me.
And now I have, I just want to shoot more. But I'll take more time and care in the future. These are by no means brilliant photos. All I can see now are flaws in the compositions, lighting, my awkward posing. And I'd be a liar if I claimed to know anything profoundly technical about photography either.
But all those are things I can work on, which feels good. And that's what these photos make me do - feel good.
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I'm a Musician, writer, photographer, designer, transgendered z-list celebrity. Insomniac's boyfriend. Tragic glamour and sleepless nights are my fellow travellers. Skinny jeans and pointy shoes are my mode-us operandi. I like cats. Especially the ones who talk. Oh, and David Lynch.
