Self-portrayal

When putting together my lecture about famous photographers, I used self-portraits that each photographer had made as a way of showing who they were in my presentation slides.

However, when it came time to put a photo of myself  on my final “thank-you” slide for the talk, I discovered I didn’t really have a good self-portrait of myself. So, instead of I used a photo that Chris had taken of me last year in Barcelona.

But it got me to thinking, though, that I really should try to make a self-portrait.

Now, I’m defining a self-portrait differently from the idea of just a “photo of yourself”.  I take “photos of myself” from time to time, usually in some sort of unusual reflections, etc. At the end of the photo gallery below, you can see a couple of examples of that type of photo. However, those aren’t really self-portraits, if we define a self-portrait as showing something about how you think about yourself, or something that gives an impression of what you’d like others to think about you.

I actually had an interesting discussion about the notion of the use of a portrait with an itinerant knife-sharpener that I went to last year here in Tübingen. His business model is to go from town-to-town for 6 months of the year (spring and summer), spending 1-2 weeks in each town. He sets up a temporary stall and sharpens knifes that people bring to him. He said that in the posters he puts up in towns ahead of his arrival, originally he included only photos of the kinds of knifes he will sharpen, with information about his arrival dates and his prices. But he had no photo of himself on the posters. His business was OK, but a little slow.

Then somebody advised him to add a portrait of himself. Apparently, at least in Germany, someone who is self-employed won’t be trusted as much unless people can actually see their portrait on the website, posters and brochures. As soon as he added a photo to his posters, his business boomed, a fact he attributes to the addition of that photo.

I guess that makes sense, when you consider the fact that here in Germany people actually send in a photo of themselves as part of their resume when applying for a job. It’s a fact that’s totally counter to what you do in the U.S., where you would never think of sending a photo of yourself looking professional, confident and friendly to a prospective employer. But that’s exactly what you have to do here. It’s actually a who sub-genre of business of photographers in Germany to make these Lebenslauf, (“resume”) photosI have even taken this kind of photo for others, but never thought about taking one like that for myself.

So, I decided to try this. All I can say is it’s as hard to capture that in a self-portrait as I thought it would be. There’s a reason I haven’t really done this in a serious way before. 😉 The first time around, I took some photos of myself outside, and wound up with a decent “photo of myself” that wasn’t a reflection, but somehow it didn’t capture that “self-portrait” idea. I’ve included it at the end of the gallery below.

But the following week I gave it another go, this time inside, with more of a plan ahead of time on how I might “pose” to portray that Lebenslauf idea of someone who is professional, confident and friendly.

Thanks to Chris’ patience helping with the tripod, and the use of his camera and remote control (so that I could use my camera as a prop in some photos), I did get a few photos that I am somewhat satisfied with as being a true self-portrait. But it took a few hours to wind up with only a few photos that I liked at all. I do have some more ideas to use when I’m trying this again. I take heart knowing that even some of the pros didn’t always take great self-portraits, even if they were great photographers otherwise. It’s definitely not the easiest photo to take.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll use any of the self-portraits I took last month in any way. But to get some feedback, I decided to go ahead and share them here. Note that the last 4 photos below are ones I call just photos of myself; it’s the first four that show more of my idea of what a self-portrait could be. See what you think.


Comments

Self-portrayal — 5 Comments

  1. I love the red hat, but there’s something about the “almost a real” one that has that “something” I can’t put into words. The first four I think are okay, but I really like the last two best.

  2. First ~ You are, of course, beautiful in all of them! I don’t know… I really kind of like the “odd reflection” one… or something along those lines…The whole time I was reading the entry, I was hoping you’d include something like that one!!

  3. I like both 3 and 4 — but is there a way to have you holding a camera but not have Nikon repeated so much? Or seen at all? Seems like an ad for them otherwise.

  4. Thanks for all the feedback!
    @Mom: I think the last 4 are fun photos of myself, but not what I typically think of as a “real” portrait somehow.
    @Karen: thanks! The odd reflection one is funky, and is something I occasionally play with (usually without too much success, though. ) But fun to try.
    ©Dovie thanks. Interesting point about the NIkon branding – not sure what do you, if the camera is pointed in the usual direction. I’ve also thought about maybe adding different kinds of cameras to the table, since my current workshop is teaching people how to take better photos with *any* camera – and that photo with just a Nikon doesn’t really work with that theme. 😉

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