“gonzo” theories, or “love yourself”….

Alfred Hitchcock,
brought this new sense of humor, by adding self portraits,
in his movies..
Hunter S Thompson, perfected it and took it to another level…

A self portrait is the higher form of portraiture…
SELF SARCASM is the higher sense of humor…

so if ONE is not “good” in self portraits, then that “ONE”
is not good in portraits in general…
if you cant relax and photograph yourself ,
then how can you work with others…
if you are not “loose”,
how can you explain or ask for “looseness” from your subjects…?

“gonzo” is self respect…
if you put “yourself”, “into” the mix too, then you are honest…
you are a good “player”, not just a pathetic, passive, observer
with one eye closed and one behind a plastic hole….

peace

SELF PORTRAIT… or
( NO BATTERIES INCLUDED )…
iphone.

http://blog.panosfotografia.com/2008_06_18_archive.html

BRAVO David great idea! Bringing the community yet closer together. Love it! Fun too! One question: Do we have to click that shutter ourselves or can we use a beautiful assistant? Can’t wait to put faces to the names.

Don’t know if you caught my last post as it was just before you set up this new page? Not sure if this is bad blog etiquette to copy this trough?…

DAVID McGowan:

Thanks for posting the video of the presentation. I wish I could have attended, so it was really nice to feel a little more a part of it by seeing the presentation. Just like being there!—even straining for a view past old curly top! (only teasing ;)) Thank you.

PANOS:

You post so much here I am often unable to keep up. The video was was the first time I have been able to see your work in a condensed form. Do you have a link to a tight edit of your stuff? Or even to the edit that was shown at the presentation? Cheers.

DAVID:

Just wanted to check in and see where we stand with the “assignments” project. I seem to remember it should be in around this time?… Obviously didn’t want to bug you during Look3, and have been pretty slammed myself, so have waited until now to put new gallery up. (Will add link to the link page too).

http://www.jameschance.com/edit2

It includes all the images people have shown interest in after the last edit—around 26 I think. (Thanks again for your opinions folks!). Due to the general busyness all round I am sorry we haven’t been able to communicate in more detail regarding specific image choices and the tone and pace of the work in general. I hope there will be the opportunity to do so before this is finalised?…

I have grouped the images in to similar types to try and make the process a little easier. I may have been pushing it hoping to cut this down to 13 images max, so am happy to expand a little if necessary.

ALL:

New post on my blog if anyone is interested… Just a small piece of work shot during a couple of days on the “holiday” part of this trip… No biggie, was not planned and invested little time and effort—we were trying to take a break!! But the plight of this little island moved us, so we spent a couple of afternoons putting this together.

We had some technical issues with the blog at first (hence this little story being posted late). But we are up and running at last. We hope to be posting more regularly now with current work, so please drop by occasionally if you have the time.

One question: I have split the blog into sections “main” Blog, Photos, and Video (coming soon). Do people think this works? I wanted to have a separate area for images, so viewers can just check out photos if this is their preference. You will see that the “main” blog is the standard type thing with images and pictures.

Same applies to the video section (when it gets there) It will be a space purely dedicated to short video clips. All this means a bit of clicking around to see/read different stuff. Is this too much!?

http://www.jameschance.com/multimedia/jctextblog/textblog.php

Still gutted to have missed Look3 and met some of you. Thanks for all the updates!

James

nice to see all this faces :)

this is my self-portrait (with help of a friend of mine also photografpher). i create this self-portrait when i became photographer at full time and a quit my previous professional 10 years work in the end of 2005.

enjoy: http://www.nelsondaires.net/index/html/tira.jpg

cheers!

nice to see all this faces :)

this is my self-portrait (with help of a friend of mine also photografpher). i create this self-portrait when i became photographer at full time and a quit my previous professional 10 years work in the end of 2005.

enjoy: http://www.nelsondaires.net/index/html/tira.jpg

cheers!

nice to see all this faces :)

this is my self-portrait (with help of a friend of mine also photografpher). i create this self-portrait when i became photographer at full time and a quit my previous professional 10 years work in the end of 2005.

enjoy: http://www.nelsondaires.net/index/html/tira.jpg

cheers!

just to say that i’m going to try to make one self portrait updated of course :)

just to say that i’m going to try to make one self portrait updated of course :)

just to say that i’m going to try to make one self portrait updated of course :)

just to say that i’m going to try to make one self portrait updated of course :)

That’s me reflected on the mirror:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2586892939_0d803cbe21_o.jpg

I just scanned that two days ago but I shot it last month when I was in London. Should I go and get another one? ;o)

oh and by the way, i’m going for the bag!!!!!!

off for a day now, driving, self-portraiting…

peace

anton

OH HELL ANTON!

David said he never wanted to see that first picture again! EVER!

LOL

David,

a question: will you be in both Arles and Perpignan?

What a totally cool idea!!! I hope to see self portraits of even the lurkers here at DAH’s blog!

I’ll take a new one specifically for this thread, but self portraits are what I’ve been doing for the past week. To give you some idea of what I mean, this is the intro I posted on Lightstalkers:

“The galleries I’m posting here on Lightstalkers are from an ongoing project I call ‘From the Inside.’ For my first 45 years, I existed within a body that was exceptionally ‘able.’ I ran two 26.2 mile/42 km marathons and thought nothing of biking 200 miles/321.8 kms in a weekend. In 1988 I was diagnosed with chronic progressive multiple sclerosis. Thus began my transition from being able-bodied to being disabled. Twenty years later I’ve come to see that one is not better than the other, simply different. Hopefully this series of photos shows you ‘from the inside’ what I mean.”

I’ve just added music to the slideshow–“Blackbird (Take 4)” by the Beatles–and am so excited about how it adds to the whole, at least in my opinion. This is just one of COUNTLESS things I’ve learned here–how a multi-media presentation can enhance a photo essay.

DAVID & ALL

I invite feedback/critiques/suggestions from anyone who has the time and inclination to check out my new work. It’s all about learning! The URL is

http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/slideshow/13233

Thanks so much!

Patricia

Whoops, I did not see that bit at the end about the pic being du jour. If that’s the case, then I will have to forego the opportunity for a free book. Rats.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myexplodingheart/2591224610/

old self-portrait…test to see if it links with flickr…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/222407759/sizes/o/

BAD DAY..

Here’s my contribution..

http://www.martinbrink.se/foton/mbsp.jpg

DAVID- great idea!

I just took this out on my porch:

http://www.asherschachter.com/asher_selfportrait_6-18-08.jpg

I didn’t realize that I look so serious!

Dear David,

There is my contribution for this post. The picture was not taken this week but it tells a lot about me.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lemondedac/June2008/photo#5213390637262376770

Have a great day from Bermuda – Arie

…I forgot to mention,
that apart from the bloggers and friends from this forum,
that i recently met…
there are many other interesting people out there…
that they don’t write here…

like,
MARTIN GISBORNE, an amazing guy…
thank you Martin for showing me what the setting ISO 25.000 !!!!!
can do….,
or
PIETER TEN HOOPEN from VU,
or
the cool guy, JOE DAVIS from Austin…

and many many more…
peace

PATRICIA… again, great work..
and COURAGE and STRENGTH… not just inner… by the way..
you are STRONG…

… i’m happy that i see mostly “NEW”!!! ( whatever that means ),
sending self-portraits first… that require major set of balls…
right on..

… here that AKAKY???… and ALL..
PLEASE DO NOT HIDE YOUR FACES… it’s about meeting each other, it’s NOT AN ESCORT SERVICE… please, relax..
let’s meet each other… it’s also SAFER for ALL of us to know who
is who… come on people… it’s fun..
you dont have to be naked… just show some FACE…
or something “extra”…( Pete Marovich , great work… that’s what i’m talking about…)

Anyways… i’m sorry , maybe i’m the only one curious in here…
peace

Hmmmm….

You may consider this OVER exposure, but I made this just before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke-to justify it there is a definite political content, you just have to look past the obvious (hehehe…)

I hope you guys are reasonably liberal thinking- and I will make another self portrait between now and Sunday- that may not be quite as revealing (or maybe more so, who knows?)

Here goes…

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/756/selfportraitforartsholeej1.jpg

PS There is a ‘Blurb’ that goes with this one as well….

“TITLE ‘PITCHFORK”

CATCH PHRASE: GLOBAL BAZAAR

BLURB (As Follows)

The Fashion Meister at IDEA Style records an in-depth interview with E, for an insight into what she is buying for the new GI Autumn/Winter Season.

FM: Can you tell me how you would describe your personal style?

E: I’d like to think of it as politically challenged.

FM: How do you incorporate this GI season’s look into your own environment?

E: I like to keep everything down to its bare minimum only accessorising with a few well chosen pieces. That draws attention to the important, essential things.

FM: Things you can’t live without?

E: My Manolo Blahnik black suede pumps and my superbly crafted red IDEA pitchfork.

FM: What are your wardrobe essentials?

E: I have a fetish for the Burka. It narrows down my vision and prevents any expression of my personality. That combined with my killer heels makes me a complete target for the Christian Right.

FM: What’s your fashion philosophy?

E: If you look in the mirror and see only the clothes, that means they are overwhelming. You need to feel like you.”

LISA SAID:
“… you just have to look past the obvious (hehehe…)…”

panos confesses…
Sorry, Lisa , but impossible for me to pass the “obvious”…
laughing,
and also overexposure or underexposure,
who cares…
it’s still good photography…
peace

SELF-PORTRAITS….

ok, so today i shot the first roll of color film (fuji CN-16/C-41, 120) that i’ve shot in more than 7 years…1 roll, 120, with Holga…was to have been the only roll of color for the Bones of Time assignment and everything was a mess…will process in next few days when i feel better and post 1 of the pics here for the Self-portrait win-the-goddamnbeautiful-bag contest….but, that will way until the weekend…

i wanted to share with y’all the thing for me about self-portraits. I shoot at least 1 or 2 pics of myself for every roll that i shoot, regardless of time, place, light, project…often the 1st frame and always the last frame, or double expose the last frame if i’ve gotten to the end and not snapped myself…all kinds: 35mm, med format, holga, lomo, even Mac g-5camera, etc…i’ve written about this before here (long ago, in the blogs infancy) and at LS…it’s about my blindness and reconciliation with my face and “seeing”…in fact, i”ve made 100’s of self-portraits and had hoped to do an exhibition, filling an entire gallery, with the pics, large and small, all formats, without orientation, just echos and echos and echos…not like some narcissistic obsession but more like Echo…her response to Narcissus has always rung deeply (well-draft spring) with me, the ache of the hollow echo, her mute response to him and his lavish weakening…for, to me, photography is closer to Echo than to Narcissus…not ’cause photography mimics or echos what was seen, but the opposite, that it wails in it’s inability to speak and yet remains (palimpsest) of what there was and that is what penetrates…at least for me…

i should tell you that i am obsessed with seeing, with my face, with blindness, with photography, with the ache of making photographs that i no longer wish to make…it is because it is my remedial act, a way to banish demons that fail to excorsize themselves..i was born with a genetic disease that first lead to a slowly atropying of my sight in my right eye and eventual blindness: it’s called Coats Disease…i’ve been writing an essay now for 1 1/2 about this, begun when in December of 2006 i almost lost my eye and almost decided to stop making photographs…

so, i wanted to share some REAL self-portraits…not the usual weird bobblack selfportraits (of which i have littered LS over the last 3 years), but my real eye, as taken by the surgeon…here is me, maybe you shall understand:

HERE ARE MY EYES:

the inside of my left eye (the eye that can see): what your eyes look like too:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/329798706/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/369515981/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/329793425/

my blind eye:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/369515994/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/369515984/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/329793422/

and part of what i wrote about blindness and what happened and being a photographer…

———————————————-

“What we see is not made up of what we are seeing but rather from what we are,” f. pessoa

I

FACES: Faces gather time along their edges, sprockets of light pitched around thumb-bowed shadow, the way milk rims the lip and bottom-dip of a glass, the way bone sedimentizes sentiment pitched from the age and voice of the earth, the way glass and stone color from exposure. We speak of time, we speak of faces, we seldom speak of how these cauterizes and coalesces into some odd unknowing. How is it that we distinguish one face from all the others? How is it that we speak of others and ourselves through an algebra of memory, speak of the faces that we have seen or known distinguished into certainty. What else is there in our knowing, at the heart of the well of our remembrance? How is it that we can ever photograph a face, for is it not the deceit (we believe we know another and ourselves by passing through the threshold of the face) that engines our operative waking? Is it not the very illusion under which we, photographers and non-photographers alike, negotiate and arrive each day we awaken and categorize neatly the arrangement of those surrounding us? How else, initially (and over recollected time) do we begin to work out an understanding of someone, let alone ourselves, then by quickly drinking up the constellation of meaning and unmeaning of a face. Recall someone: face or action, which do you see initially? Can a person’s behaviour and character and life remain faceless? To the contrary, can we not picture and construct a face without action? Then what about the blind, what is etched upon their skull and lithe memorial imagery? You should know I am blind in one eye and struggled as a child with un-seeing. At at early age, and often to my horror, i learned that each face is navigable but not attainable. In fact, I have spent the better part of my life trying to decipher what it is that I see when I look into the mirror: how is it that this chimera, this insolvable jigsaw is possibly me. When I became a photographer this became an ethical question: if I could not understand this revenant shell as me (my face yes, but surely not the “I” that is “me.”), how then to photograph someone else, let alone their face? I have not yet solved this quandary. For several years now, I have been working on a long project about faces, a personal journey apart from my other work in pursuit of that reconciliation. The project is embarrassingly Narcissistic. You should know the truth about this project. Every other project I work on, every roll of film that I expose, involves taking a few photographs of the subject faces, stripped of their context, their environment, stripped of all the surrounding earth-gravel and light-dust that we normally associate with photography, even at the risk of subverting the intent of the original projection I am working on. I often (only after people are comfortable) take a few extreme, close-up photographs, trying to get as close to people as I can, as if digging into a mirror. Soon, the disorienting calculus sets in: closeness, infinitely halved. Long exposures, focused, out-of-focus, short exposures, variable depths of field, all jostling in an effort to see how much can be removed in order to still retain the face of the “I’ or the “You.” And, I should add that I always photograph myself at least once each time before I unspool the film from camera and often for the last frame. It is a diary of failure: how far away, how licked-over-distance in the print of a smudge of space: breath between a barracks of lens and light. These photographs are a water-drop nub from this series, which is hopelessly large and seemingly endless. On good days, I think it’s the rhyme around which the rest of my photography and projects revolve and are resolved. On poor days, I feel that again I have failed to understand or properly photograph those faces around me. Failure is nothing new to any of us, and that principle is the nexus around which these simple images should be fingered. In some sense, they are different from most of my work: less and more. I continue to photograph even when I have not yet understood how to begin. Bereft. Beating. Brook. Fall upon me.

II

Everything is always unfinished, always, its in the swallowing of that, sometimes with joy sometimes with exhaustion, that sometimes it begins to make sense…

the swerve and curve of witnessing…

nothing is ever finished, but often we stop or it stops us, sometimes gently sometimes cold…..

twists of braided sticks of time….

I face I

III.

Mark the day, arc the time, remember the light: give word to that which you are unable to house: a beginning and an ending.

IV

Today, a part of me was wrenched, slow-coupled knot, tugged away and then died.

I have waited for this moment since I was an eight-year old boy and it has, no matter how preposterous or pretentious as it may sound, been the starboard-port channel by which I have negotiated my entire life: defined, rhymed and aligned nearly everything I have done and thought. To imagine though that it would ever actually return, that fear, preparations and meanderings and glibness to the evidentiary contrary, I had actually never really believed. In fact, though I had told myself that I would one day have to adjudicate a mechanic and tact by which I would deal with this fear, I had never thoroughly believed that it would be necessary: the deceiver never really believes his deceit, does he? Instead, I’d crafted a remarkable drama (remarkable only in its ability to sustain itself and lengthen and widen over time), one that I’d become quite clever and good at perpetrating: the sensitive man torn by blindness as a way to acquire insight, achieving awareness (argued as acumen) from suffering. Bloody hell. So I traipsed around my life and others claiming such a profession, the sensitive, wizened man/writer/artist who’d in the crucible of blindness and childhood suffering somehow earned something keen, a cunning really nothing more. Funny, how those grandiose claims in the end addled anything I might have really learned from the childhood trauma, but that epiphany came much later, for now I can truthfully admit to myself, and now to you, that it was all a lie. My blindness altered me irrevocably when I was eight but the armor and bravado I pulled over my yoked shoulders was not only improperly fit but simply served to cloven the real from the imagined. I’d never believed my own “actualized strength” (a ridiculous statement if there ever was and yet something I remember once saying when I was in university, one drunken night though I doubt if I even fucking knew what “actualized” even meant or what i’d been trying to suggest: get fucked most likely). In truth, I was, and still am, an insecure and very frightened person, a palimpsest of that stronger, eight year old boy.

It is what it is, as my wiser younger brother always says. Name that which things are. Speak simply about simple things. Okay, this: I’d not matured enough to accept, simply, the person I was and am. Today, all that seems like so much preening and pretense. Has it been swept aside? Well, the long-windedness has not yet left.

I am frightened.

I am frightened and no amount of verbal pyrotechnics or photographic illuminati will drape my clumsiness or alchemize into a more visually eloquent image. I am scared and everything begins, in the small, insipidly pasty-green corner of a hospital hallway, to cascade and fall away. I cry, alone, first in a small, silent-screen actor kind of way (acting also as my own audience as my wife and son are at home and I am by myself, beside the 8th floor elevator corridor of St. Michael’s Hospital, and I am crying, at first, for the audience that I have become and shaped over the last 30 years) turning toward the window and looking out over Toronto through tears and a soot-printed window and I think what a lovely photograph this would make, especially with my Holga, the iris of this man’s tears hollowing out the December-pale light and the rings of silhouette and I wouldn’t even over-develop the Tri-x and suddenly I realize that again I am thinking of photographs and I being to forget that I am performing and I forget photography and I am ashamed that I am thinking of photography and I am ashamed that I am thinking about my tears and I am ashamed that I am thinking about Holga or my Nikon and I am ashamed that I am not thinking of my wife and son and I am ashamed and I am frightened and then it all pours out and I cry harder than I have done in more than ten years and my body is trembling and all I can think is how scared I am and how I do not want to have my eye removed and that I do not want to think about this and that I am weak because I have constructed a lie around myself and my life and my loved ones and that I have been acting for so much of my life and that I have pretended to be an artist and that I have pretended to be strong and that I have pretended to see my small, insignificant eye disease as something important and that I am falling and that I am so ashamed and that I have not acted well and that I have and that I am and that I am still I am still I am still frightened and that I am not with my wife and my son and that I am preposterous at all the fear and tears and energy that I have sculpted my life with from this small thing and that I am scare and then I collapse and I am embarrassed and that and that and that and then my quivering stops and my shaking ends and I feel incredibly alone and selfish and lost and exhausted and I close my eyes and begin to breath and begin to talk to myself as I was a young boy and soon, like bubbles crystalline surfacing from a diver below, thoughts of my wife and son return and I realize that they are why i must let this all go and I must return to them undamaged and that I have them and calm soon comes and I turn away from the window and the sobbing and walk to the bathroom and look at my face and I, for the first time in my life, begin to recognize myself and I cannot yet explain to you about this and exhausted i take my pants off and sit down on the toile, close my eyes and sit there for what seems like an eternity.

I breathe.

Now, late into the cornice of the night, I am relieved by this and still there, crisp and unclean and finger-rolled in the corner of my tear-duct thought a quiet nibbling away: that I have not yet begun to reconcile myself to this bereavement. That I shall maybe never bury it or get over it as it was is will, never quite buried deep enough, is as a thinning, age’d man one of the truths that I have often hid, like a pea or lima bean a child has cast beneath the dinner table away from parents and down the corner pipe hole, and now begins to bloom and sprout and resurrect itself. The roots of that long-ago ginger-fear that I had once bottled away, now have become engorged with new life. This small fear, that which had been a part of me and to which I had held dearly (a clinging really, the hunger of the frightened child now grown to be the quivering narcissist), the fear that has been a part of me, one I have prayed would eventually be vanquished and rid of, the fear I remember telling myself the night before I was to marry (in my thinking the final threshold to manhood that I’d kept at bay for nearly 38 years) that I, beginning tomorrow, would have to expel that small, biting vanity, the mole on my psyche’s cheek that I wished, then, to have been laser’s away, that a 38 year old man about to embark upon matrimony and fatherhood should not and could not afford to be still concerned and obsessed with a small vanity, a vanity leashed since my childhood: that I would one day loose my eye, that I would anthropomorphize into the troll that my childhood memories fear’d, the names of poorer-imagining children, the delinquencies tossed at me when I was eight and nine, the dread that I would one day turn into those very names my school mates often threw, in their unknowing, upon my: cyclops. I clung to this fear (that I would swallow and take on blindness as my life’s nutrient nourishment, would accept and embrace it, would dig deep into self-pride (yes, world, i told myself as a child, I am blind and that is something you do not understand) making-over the fear (loss) into superficial and supercilious pride: my eye, my eye, my beautiful, damned blind eye. A hollow vanity and I knew exactly what all this about about: fear. Fear: the sanctuary of an eight year old boy. To be rid of fears. To be fearless. To be less of fears.

This has come rushing back into my life in the last month for I have, once again, after many years, been told that there is the possibility that I shall loose my eye, blind as it may be, and this, once again, is untenable and unacceptable and my stubborn reluctance to accept this and to consider this simple truth (not really that great of a loss in the scheme of things) non-negotiable as testimony that I still am that small child and have still not relinquished my callow and prideful fear. But this is a digression. First, what happened today before what began 3 weeks ago and before what was born thirty years ago.

Today, in the small corner of a slightly battered and damp hospital, a far-bent corner of the 8th floor wing of a teaching hospital, this particular corner of suites nearly forgotten and propped up beside the broom closet and restroom of the Urology and Dialysis wing of the hospital, I was being photographed. Photographed, by someone who was not a photographer. But that is not quite right. Rather, my eyes, specifically my blind, dead eye was being photographed: a perfunctory, case of documentation (the surgeon’s words); an entrance into the life of my eye as the doctors and residents and students “were only now just beginning to explore the resonance of what you have there…..” (the resident’s words); a clinical procedure in case it was decided that I would undergo an operation and finally, maybe incorporation into a textbook the retina specialist was writing (the technician’s words). In the end, they can take what they wish, I have what I’ve longed for: not to understand my disease, my blindness, but something much simpler, more fundamental: I wanted to see the eye, the inside of the eye that had been my life’s nemesis, but also the very thing which has made me the person I am.

As boy, as a grown up, later as a photographer, i had long dreamed of that moment: the photographs, the image which would liberate me from the very thing which had haunted and defined nearly the entirety of my life: that which had set my entire understanding of what it meant to “see,”; the photographs i had always dreamed of (awake, asleep, broken) but would never be able to accomplish myself. When I became a photographer, the irony was a profound sore spot: that I could NOT photograph that which i most wished to photograph; that i could not photograph that which made me a photographer; that i could not photograph that by which i was a photographer: my eye and its milky, bloody blindness.

Today, I sat in front of a high-intensity flash (Nikon camera bodies attached to a spidery apparatus connected to a large computer screen) armature and knifing lens, both excited and slightly uneasy and watched (as if from afar, as if a spectator at my own gladiatorial exhibition) and listened (listening with my eye) while the insides of my eye, as well as the landscape of the rest of my body, jump-prick lit up with a blinding flash of intensity, spreading quickly across the barren desert of the test-site that is my eye: a flash point, the radial arc of light as it leapt from a pinpoint in the middle (blue broken, then the red-spot of blood and life, like the umbilicus knot, the ball of red life in a chicken’s egg yoke) and which quickly radiated itself over the curve of my eye and heart. I shivered, unknowing what i knew i actually understood. And then came the falling away, slowly at first and then sped up in a velocity that is knowable only through the pace of dream. In a nick of time, I felt my eye (physicality of hot, white-white light: heat) and my fear radiate and evaporate in an explosion that I had not been yet prepared for. The atomic age watermarked, now, along the cornea of my memory and the tumorous, scar-tissue sea of the inside of my eye. Even after the first click, and sitting back, I continued to flinch from the exhaustion. How long had I waited for this: the age of eight.

Today, after nearly 30 years of imagination, i saw the inside of my eye which has been deformed, den-uttered and de-numbed by a pediatric disease which has left me, not only blind, but has honed the person that I have become. I was born with a genetic, pediatric disease (Coates Disease) which, in rather remarkably short time left me blind (right eye), retina-detached and haunted, as the disease, still hungrily, left its mark, not only in the blindness of my right eye, but in the engorgement of a cataract which for most of my life clouded the pupil of my right lens and which has in the last year torn, shorn away the lens, in its gloated, bullying falling away: this year it fell off and away and took with it my lens, which anchored itself, embedded, into the side of my cornea and which, so the doctors now tell me, has been at the heart of all this grief in the last four weeks. But that is a story, to which I will eventually surface, but first this:

If you asked me what kind of person am I, I would answer you this way: look at my eye……

I am blind.

Today, I saw, finally, the face of this blindness and how ironic that it was bequeathed me in the form of a photograph.

Hi, tis me and my dog.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3287757&l=eb96d&id=876855413

Bob B, I love you for many things that you are and for some that you are not, but tonight I love you for your unflinching sight into the eyeball of fear and pain. For what is blindness but the reluctance to see things as they are. You, my friend, will never be blind.

Patricia

LARA YOU HAVE A BEAGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is Mr Bigglesworth (after the WWI Flying Ace of course) who is my best friend ever!

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/9360/2a2n4341akz7.jpg

BoB Bruz- You are a great Artist- I love your ‘eyeballs’ and the fact you are standing quite naked as well!

Could I just ask (again) when is the book coming out, I am having trouble reading your writing in this format.

Thats a great self portrait Patricia, well done!

Like I said ‘you’re a braver man than I am Gungadin!’

Well I am quite a narcissist. And I think, I do take self portraiture quite seriously. Here’s something I tried day before yesterday:

http://siddharthahajra.blogspot.com/2008/06/self-portrait-1.html

Bob,.
like your eye photos a lot !
————–

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1322891&l=59b4d&id=616940048

patricia – your work is beautifully understated.
thankyou

photo for contest made 2 minutes ago:

http://www.marcinluczkowski.com/photo/p0.jpg

photo for face share

http://marcinluczkowski.com/photo/p1.jpg

PANOS :))

hey, i got lots of nude self-portraits too ;))..and you shoulda seen how close the surgeon got to my eye with his camera: like press right up against by body’s “glass”..yea, maybe witkin: there are more, much more…seeing these color digi pics almost made me give up B/W ;))

ASHER :)))..thanks, sent u an email :)))..love your jazzy self portrait:

PATRICIA: great shot and thanks so much for the loving words: by the way, do you know the painter Susan Rothenberg? One of my and Marina’s favorite…your portrait reminds me of her paintings, especially of horses:

http://www.mfa.org/dynamic/sub/rothernberg.jpg

http://www.matthewlangley.com/blog/uploaded_images/rothenberg9019-736053.jpg

http://www.speronewestwater.com/images/cached/SW_WORKS.image.438.w250.JPG

etc…

SISTER LISA :))))..have always loved that Madahari portrait ;)))))…the book: who knows…I wanted to finish this year, but we’ll see…thinking now: maybe some of the prose will be for a photo book and some as a book book…we’ll see ;))

EMILY: that’s the MOst BEAUTIFUL johnny D i’ve ever seen! :)))…GIVE HER A PRIZE RIGHT AWAY :)))…

KATHARINA: Kat :))))…you look like a young poplar tree there :)))…poplars 9and birch, my favorite trees :)))..

NELSON: :))))..great series :)))..love the transformation and love the face! especially sans cheveux :)))

ALL:

great to see ur faces…if i see anything interesting from yesterday’s film, i’ll post 1 for contest too..

running for a few days away

b

wow people,great portrait…

My self portrait. inside soul…
http://www.cristinafaramo.com/self/cristina_faramo.jpg

tnx
baci

PATRICIA….

ok, my dear, you can do and should do a book….

you are a long way from being finished or maybe even from being “started”, but you have all of the “tools” and “grist” for creating a body of work that will sing sing sing….

it was interesting to me how the picture you submitted as a “self portrait” was quite different from all of your other self portraits in the form of “daily life”…hmmmmm…well, no matter….you are “on to something”..

your big decision and question is this: do you want to have yourself in every picture or do you wrap in the “view from here” as part of the narrative??….

in other words, do you need your specific circumstances in every picture?? for example, in a book layout, it could be really provocative for the viewer to go on for a long time not even realizing your “special place” on this planet…

the sequencing, title, and overall feel will be so important..i would not make an attempt at editing just yet….not important now….

this is something that will require lots of thinking…in any case, surely your book will be a continuous self portrait overall, but you might want to think how you would see “out” and “in” simultaneous….

at some point we will need to meet…i cannot do online what i can do with you in person…do you live in Santa Fe?? for some reason that, or somewhere southwest, sticks in my head… but wherever you are, perhaps i can stop by on my cross country sojourn this summer…..

now, i think you should do whatever you may want to do for your book as an assignment here….a good way to begin….try things…reject things….push push and push….i know you have faced many challenges…this will be another, but totally symbiotic with your life….

ready to go to work???

cheers, david

What the heck…

Me on a good day:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3283/2592029373_6f5e4d5af8.jpg

PATRICIA…

you must have been posting simultaneous to me and i do not think you read what i wrote above…check it out…interesting combo considering neither of us knew what the other was writing!!!

cheers, david

btw.. Katharina.. you are so pretty!

while i think of something for the contest, here’s one of mine from a couple of years ago…

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/65/208926721_ed696ef240_o.jpg

btw.. Katharina.. you are so pretty!

Posted by: Aga Luczakowska | June 19, 2008 at 09:44 AM

Damn right Aga!

It should work better like this:

http://www.photosjsbreault.com/Self-portrait/images/1.jpg

Dear David,

these days I had a small exhibition “Menschenbilder” in my hometown: Pictures from people in Europe and Africa. One of these pictures was a selfportrait. I often make selfportraits. I wanted to take this one, but it was aslready one year old. So I put it on the wall of my studio and took my reflected image.

Here is my double selfportrait.

http://www.atelierkassuehlke.de/dsp

NICK YOON….

where in hell have you been?? i thought we lost you….anyway, nice “old” self portrait….can you do a new one???

AGA…

same for you…where have you been?? i think your Turkish love has taken you away from us!!! that’s ok…there are SOME things more important than this blog!!!

peace, david

DAH,
totally disagree ..
NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN
THIS BLOG..
sorry

I swear to fucking god…I did not see Joerg’s portrait until just now! AAAGH! I hate when that happens! David, can I get a do over?

Nice shot Joerg! Great minds… eh?

Panos, Aga,
…blush blush……cough cough

PATRICIA…

Just now caught up with some of your work. The slideshow…hmmmm, well to call it “moving” is too understated. It touched me. I won’t go on about courageous this or full of strength that, that’s obvious. But damn!… what a nice body of work.

Congrats.

MK

Also…just joking about the “do over” David. It is what it is.

Patricia,

photography is a powerfull way of comunication (learn and tell) and my english is not good enough to express my self to you and your work, except: Go for IT with Love.

all the best,
nelson

Patricia,

photography is a powerfull way of comunication (learn and tell) and my english is not good enough to express my self to you and your work, except: Go for IT with Love.

all the best,
nelson

Patricia,

photography is a powerfull way of comunication (learn and tell) and my english is not good enough to express my self to you and your work, except: Go for IT with Love.

all the best,
nelson

Patricia,

photography is a powerfull way of comunication (learn and tell) and my english is not good enough to express my self to you and your work, except: Go for IT with Love.

all the best,

nelson

Bob,

what a lovely surprise when i read Fernando Pessoa words in here!!!

if i where in lisbon at this moment i would have gone to the down town to make a photo to you :)

cheers with eye sparkles,
nelson

Bob,

what a lovely surprise when i read Fernando Pessoa words in here!!!

if i where in lisbon at this moment i would have gone to the down town to make a photo to you :)

cheers with eye sparkles,
nelson

Bob,

what a lovely surprise when i read Fernando Pessoa words in here!!!

if i where in lisbon at this moment i would have gone to the down town to make a photo to you :)

cheers with eye sparkles,
nelson

Bob,

what a lovely surprise when i read Fernando Pessoa words in here!!!

if i where in lisbon at this moment i would have gone to the down town to make a photo to you :)

cheers with eye sparkles,

nelson

me
http://noushin.noushinography.com/me.htm

Here’s mine…

http://bp1.blogger.com/_d-l72iXjdjs/SFqHVFCB1lI/AAAAAAAAAFI/kf2UkTu4n-8/s1600-h/ANNA_B.jpg

Alex,
finally !

All right, since Panos is demanding that I show myself:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akaky/

There. Happy now?

organic self portrait:

http://www.libertypictures.blogspot.com

Robert.. i see you are following Lisa’s style ;-)

Michael K – that’s nice. Lisa Hogben – holy leggy!

If I must cut through the smoke and step over the beer cans of the festival to admit learning something, its that shooting loosely isn’t so much about what you produce (that comes after) but more about how you behave and interact. If that’s the case, and if I get to shoot Panos, Sean, David, whoever again, I plan on breaking into dance when I’m ready to fire. I was nearly there.

Anyway, this is “F22 And Waiting.” It’s a single exposure:

http://www.humanfiles.com/self.htm

ps.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3016/2592832599_a082db6934_o.jpg

fliker and facebook are filtered here and I’m not able to see some of you posting your pictures there :(

David I would like to know if it is possible to have your comment about rooms project I am working on
http://noushin.noushinography.com/my_free_space.htm

david McGowan: nice self partrait good picture

Ross, please forgive my delay in responding to your request for feedback on your East Timor project. I wanted to wait until I had a block of time to devote to it as I suspected this was going to touch me deeply. I was right.

You have taken me, not only inside the lives of the people who live in this IDP camp, but inside their hearts as well. I’m sorry if that sounds like a cliche but I don’t know any other way to put it. Because you allowed yourself to feel their suffering in the deepest part of yourself, that is where you take your viewers. In a way I’m glad the nun had to go to Australia because it meant you were focusing where you should, on the people themselves. It is THEIR story that needs to be told, and tell it you are.

Please continue with your work there. As you say, it will be even more important to show what life is like for the refugees AFTER they have been repatriated. That’s when they will become totally invisible, that is unless someone like you shines a light on their truth.

Thank you for your compassionate, artistic eye. Thank you for going where you need to go and doing what you need to do.

Patricia

P.S. To me, the b&w are strongest. At least for this story. You are an excellent photographer.

David McG…

Cool shot. One of the best so far.

Thanks Nasha. I took a quick look at your project, then I went back to it later and read—wow, I think it’s a great story. Are there ever any problems with the authorities showing shots like that? I know very little about the culture in Iran…

NELSON :))))

I LOVE PESSOA! :))))…book of disquiet!!!!…and as a poet, of course, i adore him too:

this is probably my belief in my own work/life as a photographer/writer:

Não sou nada.
Nunca serei nada.
Não posso querer ser nada.
À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.

and

Não tenho ambições nem desejos,
Ser poeta não é a minha ambição,
É apenas a minha maneira de estar só

by the way, MY FAVORITE PORTUGESE WRITER IS MY BELOVED ANTONIO LOBO ANTUNES! :)))..i’ve read everything available in English…and i have a long essay (photos and poems) that i’ve done on portugal…and i love almost allt hings portugese (yes, even christiano renaldo ;)) )…on my my favorite photographers, my friend Idalina Pedrossa,…Pedro Costa, one of my favorite filmmakers…Porto, one of my favorite wines…if i could, i would live in portugal:

the light, the silence, the dirt, the dust, the ocean, the insanity, the quiet, the melancholy…the orange dust on the hills of the Algarve, the sound of the ocean, the drip, everywhere, of time…

hugs
running
b

DAD (AKAKY!0!!!!!!)…

u look so ABSTRACT! :)))…now, i know where i got my style…u know the apple and the tree! ;))))..and all things rolling/falling…

ok, for you: 2 old portraits, to show u i still look as abstract as you: i can see our familial similarities (nature or nurture?)

ok: me…naked: 2006

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/329798708/sizes/o/

ok: me…naked, 2007 but only face:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/2590548481/sizes/o/

(old pics, not part of this competition ;)) )

GUIDO:

watching it on line as i wait for my student…DO NOT RUB IT IN!!!! ;))))

B

Not my usual jolly self (portrait)
http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/4872976_f7v3u/1/316146120_bzgMi#316146120_bzgMi-M-LB

You mean like this, Jonathan?

http://davidalanharvey.typepad.com/workshops/2008/05/please-post-you.html

Michael K.
You must have had a 20 sec timer and ran like hell to get into position outside for that double self portrait. LOL

j

Jason! Yes…exactly 20 secs. Took several takes. My neighbors must have really wondered what the hell I was doing. I’d go out there and stand as if I was mowing, but not really mowing, leave, come back repeat! Funny now that I think about it.

Yours is quite serene.

“ALL

A question: Why is it that we women seem more ready to bare all for the sake of art, as in Lisa’s powerful SP and Pete’s mood-filled self portrait/portrait of him & Jenny, than the men? Is it shyness or a cultural taboo?”

Did anyone try to give this any thought?

My view is that it is many things. One thing I think is that a lot of times women define themselves by their physical attributes and therefore their physical body is very very important to them and their looks.

While in general in this society, men define themselves by what they do, what they produce and basically look at their body and parts as tools to produce and do what they want to do.

For the most part women “expose” themselves more often for many reasons. Men like it and women value that and value their own bodies and know their own bodies is a desirable object. even if not completely undressed, most women when dressing up even to go to very fancy places like restaurants or the opera, will show cleavage or something to hint at their nakedness, while men on average completely cover up when they dress up.

Of course there are men that do the same, expose themselves and hint at their body’s nakedness like in music videos, etc or men who work on their bodies constantly and then like to show this to everyone.

But women do it as the standard and as the average while the men who do it are the exceptions, here in this culture.
The most place where one can see this standard is going to a place with formal wear. Women expose parts of their bodies while men cover up, because it is the standard here in this society that women are desired for their body and men are desired for what they do. So men’s clothes are sort of a uniform and showing of status while women’s clothing show off the body.

Just look at awards ceremonies, Grammy’s etc, it is always about the women and what they are wearing and how they look. Sure there are some men who are the exception and dress totally out and their appearance gets judged, but basically it is when they break the uniform that it happens, but mostly it is the women who are judged on their appearance and men on their merit, and this is true still from what I observe.

Ross, what you shared in this post is JUST what we need to know. I used to facilitate art therapy in a global refugee shelter here in Detroit and learned there that things are NEVER as you hear in the media. It takes going directly to the people to see/hear the truth. That’s what you’re doing and I commend you for it. Go well, my friend.

Patricia

Patricia;
When you get down to it , I’m not unbiased either… But I do attempt to be truthful to what I am witnessing…

Not sure if this one qualifies as it was taken this past Sunday, the 15th. My first and most likely my last self-portrait, for obvious reasons:)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2585713507_51eeef1ab9_o.jpg

ok and here is one of my own self=-portrais:

prick, balls, my hand and an old Dictionary…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73821181@N00/511310630/sizes/o/

I have posted some images from LOOK3 on my blog. Nothing too exciting, just some frames I shot during the week.

http://www.petemarovichimages.com/37thframe/

BOB B

OK, you’ve got me convinced! No shyness or cultural taboo going on in YOUR house, but, to be honest, I’m having trouble finding the dictionary in your image not to mention a “prick, balls and hand”! But it’s a hell of a cool pic anyway!!!

Now Marina’s portrait of you, on the other hand, lays things out very nicely thank you very much. LOVE her portrait of you BTW. Looking forward to seeing how she approaches her SP.

AKAKY

Having grown up RC, your essay tickles the pie out of me. Do LOVE your quirky way of seeing/saying what comes into your life. Please share more…

PETE

Look forward to seeing your pics from the workshop! And man, your SP/portrait is exceptional!!!

Patricia

okay…

so just got back from querétero and san juan del rio, where i spent the time getting drunk on a far too many jose cuervo tradicional margaritas to get that “glazy” look in my eye :)))

hmm first time mexico, i like…

…and PANOS especially for you i threw in my smile :))))

http://www.antonkusters.com/me

peace
anton

ANTON, is a very sexy man…
To my eyes… his is not cute,
but the ladies LOVE him…???
Look at him … but drives women crazy…!
Can someone tell me why???
ANTON,
what do you think?

AGA ,
asked me to OVER-EXPOSE my self…

BOB, great work…
especially MARINA’S PHOTO OF YOU…
you look like a happy “toad”… ready to jump from happiness,
oh… you guys must be CUTE TOGETHER!!!

which is FAIR ENOUGH since i was the one
that long time ago i asked everyone to go
“NAKED”… i meant philosophically though..!!!
So AGA, you are right,
i should get “naked” here too…!
but the kinda photo i would like to submit is
a “masturbation” photo of mine…

… but is this “legal” to post..? this is America 2008!
Is this called “indecent exposure” kinda bullshit, or
something like that???
Is the fbi going to be at the door just by posting a photo,
blah, blah…
How “far” can someone go, without a particular licence,
for a particular photoshoot…

I’m not talking about WITKIN,
that had all the appropriate licenses …
Again, is it “legal”???
to attach on your RESUME a self-masturbating photo ???

LARA

On a more serious note…

I agree that women often define themselves by their physicality and appearance but I think it goes a lot deeper than just the idea of ‘status’. There is the whole theory of the ‘Gaze’ (Berger-Ways of Seeing) that ‘men act’ and ‘women appear’.

The whole point of that argument is that Renaissance painters were often involved with wealthy patrons who wanted to ‘own’ the women in the paintings, like they were territories capable of ‘conquering’ and ‘exploitation’.

Yet few if any images exist of naked pregnant Renaissance women. These images would be offensive to the patrons who would have considered the pregnancies as proof of an already ‘conquered’ body.

Previous to this you have a similar situation arising with the opposing religious philosophies of Christianity and Islam and the need to cover the women from head to foot in shawls, headscarves and with horrors of horrors chastity belts.

Fast forward 500 years into the ‘Digital Age’ and we find ourselves with full access to Britney Spears’ private parts in an era of feminism gone mad. Or ‘Girls Gone Wild’ (which I believe is a very successful soft porno chain in the US) Yet the battle of the Hajib was fought extremely ardently in France.

Perhaps I was a victim of too much 70’s and 80’s Art School theory where the ‘personal is political’ but I believe that’s what women getting their kit off in public far more than blokes is about.

Its taking the power over our bodies back for ourselves and not being what was essentially ‘goods or chattels’ to some overlord type.

In this century some successes have been made about the control that women have over their bodies, things like female circumcision is frowned on in many more countries than before and being enforced decreasingly, abortion is far more available legally but if you WANT to wear a Burqa in many countries you are able to.

Men don’t need to get their clothes off for any reason, they have generally traditionally, across most (but not all) cultures had the pure physical power to enforce their particular tendencies with or without sartorial adornment.

Well thats my take on it anyway.

Its really an interesting discussion for me, because that photo has been shown in far more exhibitions than most of my stuff and people never seem to get beyond the ‘nakedness’ to all of the other really obvious symbols in it. Yet no-one has ever bought a copy. Thats the bit that makes me happy though, because I really feel that the underpinning statement has then been successful. (Though as I am just about to be evicted anyone that would like to buy a copy, cheques and Paypal are happily accepted…)

PS DISCLAIMER This shot was done as a really conscience choice on my part where I was fully aware that it would be seen by lots of different people on the Internet. I think that it is a really important statement to make in light of whats happening with Bill Henson’s work here in Australia.

SEAN,

David, said it long time ago… “first class act”..

… so what do i know !!!?

ok, Pete,
i take your answer as a NO…
laughing..
no masturbation pic…i hear you

NASHA….

my opinion is that your “rooms project” is very interesting indeed….a bit of mystery in every photograph…not everything is “clear” , which makes these photographs so compelling…please tell me more about this project and where you want to go with it….

AKAKY…

loved loved your self portrait…who are you REALLY????? should Anthony Hopkins play you in the movie version of your life???? i now dare you to meet me in New York…i know you are not far away…maybe just down the hall????

peace, david

PANOS my friend

am i sexy? do the ladies love me?
hey man, now i also want to know what’s going on! damn… you seem to know more about me than i do myself…

BOB bro
i love your words… they move me… really.

a

Anton – sorry I missed you at the airport – I think the festival needs one day with nothing scheduled so new friends can hang out and talk! I didn’t have nearly enough time with you, Michael K, Linda O, etc, etc…

what a beautiful thing this forum is..
we all still around.. still together..
no complain … Good times…
always the fire on..
Even if we missed each other at the airport(s)…
check this out…

… hey ANTON..!!!
what’s up!

wait couple minutes and you’ll see!!

Ok, here comes the batch from last night…

Started around 11pm, club. Trying to filter the flash of the xa
through a double vodka because at that distance it would burn me on
the neg. I probably forgot that my arm is actually shorter than 1.2m.
Oh well. I don’t know what’s wrong with my face, but I have all these
spots since recently. One of my flatmates was joking about AIDS.
Cheers.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3042/2594653274_a94e7f25eb_o.jpg

This one is of my favourite dodgy alley in Roath. I’ve not hear of
anybody stabbed there or similar, but it just looks pretty nasty, it’s
dark, it has barbed wire and it’s really narrow. I look like an
absolute wanker. I think the leg against the wall is for improved
stability.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/2594653282_29a22dbe80_o.jpg

So, getting home, finally. Well, just a half an hour walk really. I
remember setting this one for the XA to overexpose a step or two
because of it taking too much the highlights in account. Way too sharp
for my taste -excepting me- which is ok.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3075/2594653284_a67a2a5f0e_o.jpg

Ta-ta.

(SORRY! Had to split the comment into three to pass the antispam filter…)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=884367&id=653700722

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=884367&id=653700722

Hi,
Here is my self-portrait
http://www.audreybardou.eu/Site_Audrey_Bardou/Blog/Entr%C3%A9es/2008/6/20_autoportrait.html

I am going to try to make more recent one before Sunday evening…

kind regards,
audrey

Self portraits are such terribly difficult things to do.

http://lungliu.com/lungs/ljpics/self/self.html

hi…i like this…

great job, great blog…..this is mine:

http://www.micheletraglia.com/self.jpg

ciao! ;)

Robert, I am working with a nikon f4 but one or two of them are taken by digital camera

bob I’m familiar with Sadegh’s works thanks anyway

Thanks Patricia, I am going to put new picture there every week. it is not going very fast I need to find new rooms and spend time to became close to people to receive to a good picture!

Thanks Cathy. Where’s yours? And make it as “straight” as can be! ;^}

NASHA…

i think this is a great idea…..particularly given your culture and your time in history…

so much of Iranian life, at least of contemporary cultural life, goes on in rooms…hidden…forbidden….private..expressive…etc etc…

your rooms become a “mirror” of each persons life…you must keep this mysterious as you have…do not try to explain too much…

we only need a “hint”….

keep going….

JOAN SULLIVAN…

you are such a bright bright warm warm person…..the LIGHT!!! it was terrific having you in my class…and i know you were frustrated, but you need not be…your work will now fly i am sure….and your motives are solid….just “let it go” and i know we all will be seeing the most sensitive reports from Africa or wherever you decide to work next….

but one question: since you are so LIGHT how do you connect with Anton so DARK??? opposites attract??? or is there a “light” side to Anton and a “dark” side to you???? ok, i am going for more coffee….this is too much to ponder so early in the morning…

MATHEW NEWTON…

well, the bigger question is: how does our acknowledgment of the superiority of the “female aesthetic” explain the lack of women in the business generally??

but, you asked specifically about Magnum…so here goes…Magnum takes in very very few photographers, but three of our newest are Alessandra Sanguinetti and Maya Goded and Cristina Garcia Rodero…we also have the Inge Morath Award every year which is out there specifically for women and to attract women into thinking about long term projects…we are painfully aware of fewer women than men in Magnum…yet, we must wait….i promise you that if a talented woman walks in our door she will have the same opportunity as a talented man….there is zero gender issue from our point of view…

but, i am not sure why there are fewer women in the biz generally than men…or are there???

almost all of the editors and picture editors at magazines i know are women..same with the book publishing world….both Div Soul and Living Proof had strong women as my producers…on the photog side, Sally Mann and Annie Leibowitz are two of the five top selling collectors print artists…

i could go on and on with the history of photography with Diane Arbus, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange , Immogine Cunningham, Eve Arnold etc etc etc …there is long long list of women icons in photography…

perhaps in the world of editorial photography , there are fewer women…but , maybe that has to do with lifestyle more than anything else…running all over the world making photographs does not always fit the lifestyle of a woman who chooses to have a family ….even if a woman marries a solid “mr. mom”, she will still have many more responsibilities than most men can even imagine…perhaps because most women can “multitask” way way better than most men, i think their non linear thinking and sensitized imagination often makes women such very interesting photographers…

now before i go too far into an area where i know very little, please know that this answer is going specifically from me to a question asked by Matthew…two guys talking….as i think women know, men often do not “get it”…so maybe i am way off base here….and if i am, i know my friends here will tell me!!!

i can easily say this however….in the photo worlds that i know, the doors are wide open for both women and men…period.

is this a topic for a new post???

cheers, david

Here we go…

http://dalbercandido.es/dalber_self.jpg

this one is cropped but It’s that one
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2006/10/prego.jpg

Ciao David and by to all of you guys,

It’s been a pleasure met you at the LOOK3 and some of the Blog’s people like Sean, Panos, Anton..

here my portrait
http://www.laredomontoneri.it/laredo.htm

ciao a tutti…
Laredo

just mistyped the link in the previous post…
http://www.yanseiler.com/i/self.jpg

Sorry David, I only realize that the selfpic must be take this week, I sent a very old one…
can I send you a new one?
thanks
kisses
cris

CRISTINA…

please send a new one….you have a good subject with which to work!!

MR HARVEY,

Down the hall? You live in Brooklyn and I…dont. It would have to be the Great Hall of New York for me to down the hall.

PANOS,

Self-masturbation? Isnt all masturbation self-masturbation, or have the bright people out there in California figured out how to put a new wrinkle in an old practice?

BOB/LISA,

I hadnt thought of the Citizen Kane analogy. I dont think I’d mind having the Kane millions, but I’d rather skip that whole wandering around Xanadu mumuring, “Kielbasa, Kielbasa” bit.

For me to live down the hall. I must learn to proofread these things before I hit Post

Can i post one more?
from today http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3181/2595612240_6f8be20f9e.jpg

I can not promise it’s last one ;-)

:-) from today’s morning … part of my friends call me TAJRAGA from TAJRA (my dog) +AGA (me)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3072/2594796447_139a4efc44_o.jpg

ANTON….

hey my friend , i hope you know i am only teasing…. you are not even slightly dark at all…only your pictures…you, in person, are totally “light”…

i really enjoyed my conversations with you at the workshop…and you were “on it” from the beginning…

from one gemini to another, THEY just don’t understand us!!!

PANOS….

well i see that now everyone knows what i always knew….your true character and kindness….i cannot tell you how much it meant to me and to all of us for you to jump on a plane and show up for Look3…

when your “Venice Beach” came up on the big screen and Snoop did his “Riders on the Storm”, well, yes, as Erica said, i was dancing on the sideline…i thought, wow, an online process turned into REALITY….amazing…my REASON for having mentoring as an itegral part of my life….

you were so so helpful to me during those days in C’Ville..you were always making sure things went right…just taking care and appreciating everything…

many many thanks my friend…we are bonded for life…

SEAN….

speaking of getting on a plane and coming to Look3….you get the long distance travel award!!!

i had totally planned to mention that during my presentation and i totally forgot…i always speak spontaneously and without notes, so i apologize for forgetting to say that to everyone in the audience..i was very nervous for my presentation and forgot to say several important things….

i do wish we had more time to talk about what you will do now..one of the problems with this kind of event is that i have very little time to talk to any one person…i end up having short conversations with many and few in depth conversations with any one person…except perhaps in the workshops…this is just the nature of the photo fest beast…

please do not for one minute think that i am not “tracking” you at all times….maybe i do not write much and i wish you had some time on this trip to come to New York where i could have spent an afternoon with you…but i am solidly behind your work and your career….i wanted you to have the first EPF stipend for a reason….i know you will continue to live up to it and i fully expect you will grow in the context of this profession and art…you are at the center of this community….

many many thanks for coming my friend….”class act” is the least i can say…wishing we will meet again soonest…

RAFAL…

i suppose you know that your essay closed my slide show at Look3….i never would have guessed when we met in Seoul that this would even be a possibility….

your work has just “blown up” big time… you listen…and you learn…and you work…nice combo amigo…and of course the true beauty of your work is that it is of your family…sweet sweet….

i will have Mike post the EPF show today….nothing beats having been there, but you will get an idea…

i do hope i will get back to Seoul someday and meet your wife and son…in the meantime, keep showing them to us here…if you keep working as you are, then you will have book material soon…

i think you might have been my first writer here on the blog…either you or Marcin or both…anyway, a lot has happened since then!!!

please keep your good spirit and intensity…both will serve you well…and please come to see me in New York when you can….i will not come to Seoul for the Magnum show…i pulled three of my pictures out…i really did not like how it all ended up…anyway, enough of that!!!

thanks Rafal for being so easy easy to work with online and getting your material to us fast and clear and clean..Mike loves you!!!

peace, hugs, etc…david

finally shot something, not so easy with rollei and no self timer, running to drop off the film, fingers crossed..

BRENDAN,

I have an old one just like that, which i like too

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elmphotography/2195503724/sizes/m/

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2272/2195503724_aa937edbda.jpg

great portraits guys!
Here my wife and myself with our few remaining and precious Polaroids!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3264939&l=ee58e&id=579210110

;)

new non contest selfportrait

http://marcinluczkowski.com/photo/p2.JPG

Regarding self portraiture, its not something I’ve spent a lot of time on, but sometimes I want to try something and I’m the only person available. So that’d be play I guess.

I wonder if more people would shoot self portraits seriously if it were easier to point a “serious” camera at oneself. In Edinburgh its common to see a tourist with a compact at arms length with the screen flipped out lining up the castle or cathedral or Arthur’s Seat. I tend to find setting up a self portrait tedious and difficult and lacking the fluidity of having the camera in your hands and viewfinder to your eye. Plus you sometimes have to use a tripod…ugh!

Anton…
tought me a secret about belgian ale…
nobody ever finished 5 DUVELL beers in an hour…
but if you wanna do it… finish the first 4 beers in half an hour,
and then work on the 5th(last one)… slow…
take the whole half an hour if you have to…
from a gemini to a gemini thank you for the tip…
just in case i will enter a beer contest….

For David, Anton , myself and any other tortured gemini out there…
“we shall overcome”

David and group,
I’ve reorganized the galleries of my project to show loose edits of individual stories with one comprehensive edit of the story overall. I’ll be adding to both all summer. I’m also including a bit of text to set the tone of what they are giving up.

In very brief discussions with some folks at Look3, comments were that it didn’t look like these people were really suffering. This isn’t a story about poverty—it’s a story about people teetering in this economy who have to give things up. I did just get a pretty good comment from a friend:

“I think you are right to avoid the easy out with your project. Especially when everyone is feeling economic strain I would imagine poverty pity is a less effective tool.”

For example, I couldn’t get the Consignment girl to not smile, yet she can barely make enough stripping to make rent. So people say, “Why doesn’t she just go get a job?” Because they are really hard to find here.

Now I don’t want to hear from the (Panos / Harvey) peanut gallery that this assignment is hard, seems hard, or is only going to get harder. Panos knows I mean no harm by this, because he told me, but his assignment was easy—mine is not. I’d much rather be shooting the Oakley girls surf team in Costa Rica like Christopher Wray-Mccann, but not every assignment, either from myself or from a publication, is going to be easy. I’m challenging myself, and I’m not going to bail on this just because I haven’t hit full-stride. I’m still convinced it’s a good story.

David, respectfully, you can’t just mentor the stories that come easily to photographers. I know you don’t do that in you workshops. Some stories are just different monsters that take on a pace of their own. To my advantage, I have time, because the economy isn’t going to get better any time soon. What I’m looking for is a mix of criticism and direction. From that I’ll find encouragement.

It’s important to know that I realize (I think) that what I’ve shot doesn’t really “move” people yet, but I’m looking for it. What I really want is to create something ordinary folks can identify with.

To take a page from his book, the squeaky Panos got the grease—so can I! :)))))))))

Stories coming up:

Young Single Mom

Family: A Day in the Life of a Yard Sale

Party at the Boat Slip—Not on the Lake

(hopefully) People Pray at Gas Pumps for Lower Prices

Link to Garage Sale Culture:

http://www.humanfiles.com/garagesale/garagesale.htm

Aga, I really liked the last one, almost wish you couldn’t see the camera, but I have to look at the others again.

Hey David

I was wondering how you manage to keep track off all of the submissions on a thread this long! LOL

Actually I was thinking about that when I was trying to figure out an easy way to get to the most recent posts, or the ones I have not read when there are so many pages….

Are most people using a web browser or some sort of reader?

Hi..this is me and mykid, we were wearing traditional java outfit (have you seen java-indonesia, mr.Alan?)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17795960@N00/2596139628/

Hey!

Here is a auto-portrait from Belgium!

Julien
http://www.julien-lambert.com/online/DAHjulien.jpg

Rossen, the bravest portrait so far!

JCHANCE :)) been working hard on several projects at various stages, some pay, some personal … nice mix and nice for a change, so it’s hard to keep up here if you miss it even for a day or two! I’ll do a self-portrait … too bad though, i just cut my hair, happened just the other day, gettin’ kind of long, you know it was in my way … hadn’t since BKK, total hippie.

MATT NEWTON!!! HA, great self portrait! Now that’s a knife mate! How ya doin’ BKK compatriot? Think of you in Tasmania … opposite ends of the globe but similar climates and socioeconomic/environmental pressures. I appreciated your work on logging, knew some pilots for Lighthawk in the Northwest. A recent aerial shot in the Seattle Times of a huge landslide on a steep slope clearcut is changing policy … go fly Matt :))

anton…do u remember….gemini and acquarium….?
ohhh perfectI
…I love!

criss

PATRICIA

yes you’re right, i think us gemini should enter two self portraits… we are sooooo complex that we need two images to fully describe ourselves :))

so yesterday morning i got stuck with my head in my shirt in my hotel room, really funny & embarrassing but nobody to witness… a little dark side cos you can see me being hugely hungover from the margaritas for my previous self portrait :)))

http://www.antonkusters.com/darkme

peace
anton

hey PANOS…

sorry to hear about your ex-aquarius… but to me, you are perfect!

by the way, you still have to show me something… i’m still waiting, still curious

Just started reading along, at the suggestion of a much better photographer than myself. So here I am, as much as I can figure for now:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zetlan/2595835229/

Z

This one is me… self-constructing after moving from countryside to São Paulo city.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrecherri/2233337952/in/set-72157603900409966/

Thanks!!!

oh , i see…
i meant that although we all had to split from look3…
does not matter… we are still HERE…
in this blog… in DAVID’S HOUSE… for free!!! no rent,
free drinks, free advice, free … free… free…!

so i shouted at you… ANTOOOON!!!
and guess what… you responded…
that’s what i was trying to say…

thank you DAVID… for keeping the door open for ALL of us…
( hopefully this wont turn into some kinda religion and shit…)
laughing..
peace

ANTON, i still CAN’T EXPLAIN IT, but it’s true…
the ladies love you to the extend of making all other males envy..
laughing,
LOVE YOU man…
i hope i meet you somewhere in europe at some point…
peace,
and stop drinking too much, you making me jealous…!

ERICA, that’s great! The grass looks like some kind of suburban crop circle. And SEAN, what an excellent letter. I’m not sure how the censors figured out the subversive nature of this blog, but hopefully they’ll let you back soon.

LISA, as far as I’m concerned.
you said it…”revealed”..!!!

that’s what I “requested”,!!?
and thais what you delivered…!!!

Bravo!

LISA

beautiful self+1portrait… really…

have to go now, the wine is calling :)

peace
anton

PETE…

i take Herve’s advice…click on the page you want in the URL box…if there are 201 comments and want to go to the end fast, just delete the 2 and put in a 5..got it????? shoot a tequila first however!!!

I think I should stick with my original entry, but Aga had asked what else I had shot of myself, so I posted the series:

http://www.humanfiles.com/self.htm

You have to scroll down. Check these out, Aga!

David,

I squeezed this frame off yesterday, among others, from the cab of my ’65 Chevy truck. The drivers side window no longer rolls, forcing me to sit shotgun for the “Portrait”. The light fades, time is precious, my thoughts are scattered…at least for the time being.

http://fedoraphoto.com/DisplayFedoraPhoto.cfm?MyGID=19&MyAction=DisPics&LayoutToUse=Rollover

I enjoyed this short, introspective assignment and the results… the varied perspectives, the dialogue! as usual there is always “something” to take away and mull over, an idea, a thought, another perspective…always another perspective! Keep the floodgates open Harvey!

Nos Vemos…Jeremy

selfportrait and hello

http://alexurban.pl/paint/alex_urban.jpg

I forgot to say my selfportrait is not for conrest.

A friend of mine told me about this contest.It is the first time I am doing this..I am usually shy.So I hope you like it,I am a fond amateur.I am self taught.I took this image on my own, sitting on a little self -made ‘studio-box’ I found in …garbage!!!( I am also very…small in size hahaha).The light is from one small lamp.Photography has helped me more than once to enjoy life.

http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1442247

Late to the party, as usual. AND with an old photograph. On the road right now – it’s the best I can do. Lotta great stuff here. BTW, I’m the cute one in the picture. Heh.

http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00L/00Lgwe-37215584.jpg

ABELE :)))))…love that series of militaryabele very veyr much! :))))))…another winner…if u ask me…poor judges indeed

david: you might need more bags? ;)))

b

Bob Black… what you mean “did you see the new PRIVATE?: on Polish photographers??” … what private and where?.. and.. i wish my dog is puppy, but it’s not :-( she is 14 years old and very ill last few weeks

Slightly different approach… Was made without using a camera (any guesses?)… No real use of photoshop either —only just to combine the rear face/hands and my own (face). Not strictly documentary or photo”j”… but thought I would throw this one in the mix anyway, variety is the spice of life right!!?…

http://www.jameschance.com/distport.jpg

James

http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/slideshow/13133

the first one in the slideshow,but there’s few other s-portraits in the beginning.

j

I want to say that there are many really inspired self portraits here, so happy to be seeing them and I am grateful that you asked us to do this, David. I always enjoyed shooting these when I was grappling with stuff, at age 18, 19, 20…but I haven’t done this in a long time and it was a good thing try to do from where I stand now. It was different; I feel like I photographed myself much as I would have if I had been with myself..meaning, as if there were 2 of me, 1 as the subject and the other the photographer. And there is something wonderful about that. Before, I had thought of self portraits from the perspective of the subject in relation to the camera, but now I see how you can think of them from the place of the photographer in relation to the subject.

I wanted to post one more, but It can’t really count for this contest because I actually did it a few months ago… but I really kind of like it…

http://www.spencerlloydphoto.com/sprouts.html

http://www.kcengphotography.com/download/self/self.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/aaronsnell/central03.jpg
a few days ago, central park.

bobblack – you’re too kind. Thanks for the good words.

Hehehehehe…..

And now I know what you ALL look like

Even from the inside out!

Bruz BoB should definitely get a bag for that series of eyeballs I reckon!

Aga:

http://www.privatephotoreview.com/en/index.php

I had hoped to use this self portrait assignment as an opportunity to show a better side of myself than the out of focus iphone shot taken at Alex Webb (no offense Ryan-thanks Anna!) but instead I may have learned something.

1:30am in my bathroom (so as not to wake husband and bird) sweating my ass off (heat wave)…

Each in focus shot I saw of myself seemed so one dimensional…it was me but it wasn’t ME… The only photo that seemed to REPRESENT was this one which doesn’t look as much like me but is more ME! Does that make sense? :)) Of course it does!

I understand about capturing the essence of the subject but I somehow “got it” on a deeper level by being the subject myself.

Now what I need to learn is how to post one image to its own webpage thru .mac….like Panos does.

How do you do that Panos?

Let’s see if this works…
http://web.mac.com/cathyscholl/iWeb/Site/Photos.html

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=935593&id=505406101

Taken yesterday evening…..fantastic idea….after a month I finally held teh camera again and all questions in mind disappeared…..i look forward to photographing this month…..thank you

Siddharth

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jinju/2600054264/

heres mine

here it goes…

http://picasaweb.google.com/subhrajitbasu/SelfPortrait/photo#5214615141436458002

my self portrait for the contest

David, you have made my sleepless night more than worth it. To see and read your self revelation as the dawn is slowly coloring the night sky is one of life’s jewels of a moment. Both your words and image will stay with me for life. Thank you for being willing to bare your skin & heart.

Patricia.

:o)
very kind patricia.. i kind of didn’t want to get dressed again..

sleep easy..
x

Hi everyone!
Nice to see your faces :)
Down with anonymity!!
This is me “in private”..

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2930/19062008003copycopyhl9.jpg

Great to see all of your faces…not been able to catch up on the posts yet, only most of the links. are currently in bergen, norway, where i am visiting a friend, and a family i stayed with in the US, will be arriving tomorrow.

anyway, here is my self port…
http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/feed/13348

Interesting to me that three of the very strong images (and there are others–these just came to me–) depict relationships in the portrait–the “self” is the “self” in part because of the “other”–Alex and his baby–Lisa and man–David and woman.
These little vignettes we give are just part of the “book” we all are–glimpses we hope are honest as well as enlightening? enjoyable?

Are they all about relationships in some way–relationship with the environment–or even loneliness?

It is fun to see how others present themselves–how much they know about who they are and what they are willing to share.

I have also found the commentary–for example David’s above–a very rich part of the “portrait.”

I think photographs are amazing in their ability to enlighten or deceive. Searching for truth and beauty is universal and keeps us challenged.

Good luck on this David. Choosing just three would be a challenge.

Went to a spa today and … here I am again:
http://mochiron.org/temp/self2.jpeg

DAVID BOWEN! :)))))))))))))))

THAT IS MAJESTERIAL and the real fucking deal: humour from the skin of pain: i call that bloody life! :))))))….and the words too…that, to me, is what this contest was supposed to be about! :)))) (why i shared the eyeballs and essays)…

that’s a gorgeous and joyeous and brilliant pick (love the orange bloom of your feet pads!) :))))…

that’s another winner

(david harvey, u gotta unload ur bags on this dude too!) ))

enjoyall

running
b

Thanks Panos!!! I like that one too but the one I’ve sent means much more what I was thinking at that time…
But still thanks man

Hi David,

Here are two auto-portraits I took today (Sunday). This is in addition to the picture I posted few days back. I guess you see how motivated I am to get a signed bag !!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lemondedac/June2008/photo#5214731456134042498

and:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lemondedac/June2008/photo#5214731460208303394

Have a great day from Bermuda

Arie

http://www.kimhonghee.com/bbs/data/iloo_review/2594743271_bbaf9a110f_o.jpg

^^

Thanks.
Kyunhghee

Dear David,

There is my fourth and final auto-portrait taken today.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lemondedac/June2008/photo#5214764850121889282

Arie

hi David and all, here’s a portrait just for fun (non-competition!):

http://picasaweb.google.com/dimitrimellos/SelfPortraits/photo#5214767992817392450

(inadvertently after Archiboldo, with the trees in my face)

and this is the one I submit for the contest:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dimitrimellos/SelfPortraits/photo#5214768001370419650

please judge the photograph, not the aesthetic quality of my mug! :)

Here is my autoportrait for DAH !
http://www.julien-lambert.com/online/DSC_5227.jpg

ok, i made a self-portrait an hour or so ago in one of my favorite places on earth – the seattle arboretum. i always think of that beautiful and natural sanctuary as my ‘true home’.
(but, being a gemini – yes, another one! – i need my city life too.)
so this is me, in my true State – reclusive, in nature and always turning toward the Light. ;))

http://photos.imageevent.com/iamkatia/thanksgivingatthearboretum/huge/me-fn.jpg

(btw, the photo album it’s in is old, hence the ‘thanksgiving’ in the title, but the photo is brand new as stated above.

Posted a portrait taken this week on my blog now at http://www.uberexposed.com/2008/06/self-portrait.html

Okay, since the entries are supposed to be fresh fruit and not yesterday’s leftovers, here’s my official entry:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/akaky/2602078718/

Please have a look at this one. I don’t comment often but look in on the site almost daily.

cheers Gabor

http://www.gaborphotography.com/gabor_gasztonyi.htm

Friday was a long day.
I was sick. And a tad short, apparently.

http://jonpack.com/blog/2008/06/22/this-guy/

xojp.

Hi everyone,

I was away and … came back too late.

Just saw Davids assignment and went running to do SOMETHING, so I do not feel I let this one pass by.

Well, it is not Sunday in Germany anymore, but in the US it is still weekend!!
So maybe my quick&dirty from a minute ago is not completely useless…

http://dark.lassal.de/hidden/me/

Best to everyone!
Lassal

MARCIN

could you post more of your drawings (and/or paintings) for us to see?

DAVID BOWEN, YOUNG MAJOR TOM, ARIE, AUDREY!!!!!

Beautiful, beautiful gorgeous images…

DAVID BOWEN, what can I say but that one is stuck in my head and when a picture is as unforgettable as that, well it will live forever. Its a great tribute to your burgeoning family!

AUDREY that is such a fucking great photo- it is so quintessentially French- Jaques Tati and all that- I reckon we will hear lots about you in the future as well!

ARIE I love the one with the dog and the one with your partner and baby also are gorgeous!

YOUNG MAJOR TOM!

As self portraits go I reckon you nailed it! Thats how I see you, contemplative, romantic and perhaps a little other worldly- perhaps you should call this one ‘Splendour With Some Grass’!

Its a really great portrait Tom and I reckon DAH should send you the book!

WOW This is great, I have seen loads of portrait competitions before here in Oz and they all get a little bit standard if you know what I mean, I think these are the most interesting I have seen for some time!

Congrats and now off to view the slide show!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/2594650070_d5d76929b3.jpg?v=0
I was alone, falling free, trying my best not to forget.
Baby did you forget to take your meds.
I did just get my first camera bag at a garage sale yesterday for 2 dollars but some lucky soul is going to get a print, you can never have to many pieces of art around the house.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27850900@N03/?saved=1

Self Portrait for Lee Guthrie (hope this works)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27850900@N03/?saved=1

Self portrait for Lee Guthrie (trying again–Rosemary said it wasn’t working for her)

Lee

YOUNG MAJOR TOM!!!!!!

Hehehehehe…….

Love the one with the good light- reminds of a publicity still for a ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ movie!

No, no Lisa … i think the book is yours!!! :)))

minutes to midnight and i guess i’ll be going for this one for the contest… jetlagged as hell lying on my bed not being able to sleep… looking at my tired feet which walk the earth we all live on and suddenly thinking about that more than is actually good for me…

http://www.antonkusters.com/tiredme/

love to all
anton

… laughing my ass off.. kelly is running around in a towel.. a few explitives flying.. camera and lights next to the tub on stands.. and she squeaked in at 12:00… with oooops the ‘wrong’ picture.. i love it. see what you’re doing here David!!! :)

Audrey,

Love yours!