Ruth Borchard

Self-portraiture

Ruth Borchard had a collection of other people’s self-portraits which has inspired the current competition.

For my research, I have looked at how others have tackled the process of making a portrait of themselves, rather than the present trend of smartphone selfies.

I have been amazed by how the themes for self-portraiture can be so varied, from straight photos to parodies of self and pure tragedy.

Below are some of the ones I have found the most inspiring.

Salvador Dali did many photos and collarges of himself and these two show his talent for doing parodies of himself

Charles Duley

This is a self-portrait by Charles Duley a photographer who saw action in Afghanistan. Whilst in Afghanistan he stepped on a land mine and lost both legs and one arm. His moving portrait is entitled “My Broken Statue”

Charles Monet painted many self-portraits and below are two examples. In these we can see his vision of a more serious attitude to the task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Hockney portrayed himself in some of his work in a self-parodied fashion and also in a more artistic format.

 

David Hockney “Self Portrait, 25 March 2012, No. 2” iPad Drawing © David Hockney

 

Andy Warhol has chosen a more extrovert approach for this self portrait

 

This is a Picaso selfie and a bit more like one would expect from him

Clearly there are no discernible boundaries in what can be a self-portrait and therefore it does make ones’ choice of format and taste somewhat easier.

My Approach to self portraiture

I really find it a difficult if not impossible task to do a self portrait. I have decided that rather than do several studio sessions, I will do just one and do a stock set that I can experiment with.

These are my stock images

From these stock image I have experimented and come up with the post processed ones below.

 

 

No1 image

I have chosen no 1 Image because in trying to do a self portrait I wanted to show how people change over the passage of time. The far image is of me at about four, the centre is also me in my twenties and the foreground image is my most recent shot done in the studio. I have named this image “Fragility of Time”