What is a selfie?
A selfie is a photograph of yourself, taken by yourself. It is usually taken on a camera phone, however before camera phones existed, they were taken on cameras in mirrors, or shop windows. It can be of any part of your body, but they are usually of the face. They can be taken to document an occasion, or an outfit that you were especially proud of. The selfie has become a massive phenomenon on social media, however it has been around for a long time prior to that. In fact, the first selfie ever documented was taken in 1839 by Robert Cornelius, who was an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast.
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What is self-portraiture?
A self-portrait is a piece of art that the artist has made of themselves. There are many ways to make a self portrait, for example they can be painted, etched, drawn, printed etc. The self portrait stretches back to a long long time ago, and was used during the renaissance as a sign of status.
Alien guide to the selfie:
In our first lesson back we were introduced to our topic theme, the selfie and were asked to think about the concept of the selfie and why its become such a big phenomenon on social media. We talked about the different types of selfies, for example mirror selfies, hidden selfies and disguised selfies. We were then asked to write a guide to aliens telling the how to take a selfie. This is my guide:
Vivian Maier:
Vivian Maier was an American street photographer. She was born in New York, however spent most of her childhood in France, where her mother was from. Throughout her life time, she took over 150,000 photographs. However, her photos remained undiscovered until 2007, when a collector from Chicago, John Maloof, acquired some of her photos. In 2008, he published some of her work on the internet, but it wasn't very successful. However, a year later, her work went viral. Since then her photographs have been exhibited all around the world.
For this lesson we were asked to create an "exhibition" for some of Vivian Maiers self portraits. We ordered them so that they sort of went in categories. We then wrote a paragraph about Vivian Maiers, introducing her and her work. I really enjoyed this lesson because through doing this we experienced what it was like to design an exhibition and we also discovered more about Vivian Maiers herself.
My Selfies
For our half-term homework, we were asked to create a series of selfies or self portraits. This homework wasn't my favourite, because I don't really enjoy taking selfies, however this didn't turn out to be too bad.
WWW: I enjoyed this because I liked exploring the different concepts of photography.
EBI:I had experimented more, I found lots of them very boring. I wish I had dressed up and done some more in the style of Cindy Sherman.
WWW: I enjoyed this because I liked exploring the different concepts of photography.
EBI:I had experimented more, I found lots of them very boring. I wish I had dressed up and done some more in the style of Cindy Sherman.
Distortion
In this lesson, we were asked to pick a word out of a hat . For mine I chose the word distorted. With this word we were asked to take a bunch of photographs to do with the word that we chose. Instead of taking lots of new ones, I tried to edit one of my old selfies.
This is some of the other work I did inside and outside of school:
I also looked at some artists who created distorted selfies by
My Photography Assessment
Our task was to compare and contrast these self portrait photographs.
In the Friedlander photograph I can see a mans reflection. In the centre of the photograph and a little mirror reflecting a mans silhouette. I think that this mirror was either inside the room at the back or stuck on the outside of the shop that the man is standing in front of. Behind hime is another man in the left mid ground of the photograph, standing against an old fashioned car (this image was taken in 1968). Behind that, on the right is another car, and a long building stands in the very back of the photograph. In Woodman's picture, I can see a white wall, with a doorframe through the centre and a radiator on the right. Through the doorframe, i can see a mirror on the left in the background with a person hiding behind it. Only their right hand is visible, as it can be seen lying flat against the mirror. Next to it is what loos like a body wrapped in wall paper, standing up with the feet visible. It looks as though the person is in mid movement, as there is a slight blur. In Josephson's image , i can see a hand up against a car window resting on the side. this is the main subject matter. In the midground is the aforementioned car andin front of that, you can see the photographers shadow. he is wearing a stetson hat. Behind the care are soem more cars and a van and a bicycle, all in motion
Assessment Photos
For the practical part of our assessment we were asked to take some photos in the style of one of the photographers in the photos we wrote about. I quite liked the style of Kenneth Josephson's photo, and so I took inspiration from that. I also took some more with Kate in the style of Francesca Woodman.
My favourite photos
The photos that I think turned out the best are:
I like the photo on the top left corner because it is a hidden selfie with a self portrait hidden inside it. This is good because its two types of selfie in one photo. I like the picture in the top right corner, because you can see my hand reflected in the window. I think the bottom two are good because the one on the left looks very put together and like something out of an old film ( thats what it reminds me of and I don't know why) and the one on the right is very abstract but its also a hidden selfie and I think it looks cool as I like the fact that it is blurred.
WWW: I think all the photos that i took in school all work together well because they are in black and white and all quite similar.
EBI: I had taken better photographs outside of school, I don't think they turned out very well
WWW: I think all the photos that i took in school all work together well because they are in black and white and all quite similar.
EBI: I had taken better photographs outside of school, I don't think they turned out very well