This project focuses on the relationship between the photographer and their images. Reflecting personal experiences, responses or opinions within the photographs. This can be conveyed in a simple self portrait or a more in depth series of images. I am going to first be reflecting on lectures and doing research into how different photographers approach self portrait. Im going to start with a painting by Joseph Wright. He painted this scenario while in greece. The image shows a woman drawing the outline of her lovers shadow before he goes off to war. This image arguably dictates the creation of portrait. She is drawing his shadow as representation; she wants part of him to be left behind. To me it makes sense for a shadow to represent a portrait as its personal and unique to everyone.
More recently photographers have used shadow to represent their self-portrait. Looking at a range of different shadow work I think it’s not only the shadow itself that makes the photograph personal, but also what it is cast on. Ansel Adams is iconic for his landscape photography, which he reflects in his self-portrait. Here he has cast a shadow over what could be a desert floor, or a mountainside. Wherever it is, its different and its because of the location that you still get the sense who he is. I will remember this when creating my own self-portrait work, that the location is just as important and the context.
A Short History of the Shadow by Victor I. Stoichita
After reading a couple of passages from this book I have taken down some memorable and interesting points and quotes.
"At the age of five a child can already understand that the shadow is the shadow of an object (the hand) and that this is attributable to the hands opaqueness (to the bones)"
"However from around the age of eight the child can even predict where a shadow will fall, going as far as to state that the shadow is produced when light is absent"
"Children as young as six months can recognise themselves in the mirror"
"The mirror stage involves primarily the identification if the I, whereas the shadow stage involves mainly the identification of the other"
More recently photographers have used shadow to represent their self-portrait. Looking at a range of different shadow work I think it’s not only the shadow itself that makes the photograph personal, but also what it is cast on. Ansel Adams is iconic for his landscape photography, which he reflects in his self-portrait. Here he has cast a shadow over what could be a desert floor, or a mountainside. Wherever it is, its different and its because of the location that you still get the sense who he is. I will remember this when creating my own self-portrait work, that the location is just as important and the context.
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