Self Portraits of a Redhead

I have been totally inspired by Andrea Despot's self portraits. Not only is she very brave to post them publicly but I like her observance of eye contact or hiding her face in most of her shots as a reflection of her shyness. I started to evaluate my own self portraits. I've always felt like if I showed them publicly I was being conceited or something. But now it's either my attitude of not caring so much what people think of me or it's a study in self reflection that has brought me to this post. I was also asked to dig out an old photo of an art piece I created in college that had me digging through old photographs this weekend and I came across quite a few self portraits. These are just the ones I have on my computer. There are quite a few more.

The self portraits I used to take when I was a photography student in college were usually straight on--me looking directly at the camera. I had no fear of the camera and exposing myself. I think part of that was confidence and part of that was I was working in an art department where all the students did such things. It was considered normal to take all kinds of crazy photos of yourself. Then after graduation they start to change a bit. I don't really know if it was a lack of confidence or just me playing with different angles. Does it matter really? Anyway, I have been taking a lot of self portraits lately, mostly due to my etsy shop. I took these few yesterday while I was doing a massive shoot of clothes to sell on ebay.

One of the reasons I love self portraits is because of the sense of control you get as a photographer. Not only are you totally in charge of what's happening behind the camera but in front as well. It's exciting.

I look so young here!

Took these while I was doing product shots.

How's that for confrontation?

Part of the Swallowed series. I look like I am underwater.

I think my eyes look "dead" in the photo on the left actually. I was going through a tough time.

The one on the right was taken inside this really cool farm house that I was shooting a virtual tour of. I would love to go back there with a real model and shoot.

Another one from a long time ago. I borrowed an 8x10 camera from school (the kind you put the black cloth over you). I yearn for a camera like that.

This one I developed in my own dark room and used a process called solarization. It's where you develop the photo then dip it back into the developer again.

Yes, this was film. I double exposed it inside the camera. My old room in college with my artwork on the walls.

This one was always one of my favorites. I took it using a Mamiya 645 that I had borrowed from someone. The color and the mood turned out exactly the way I wanted. My scanner is broken so I had to rephotograph this and the quality suffered.

This is another old one. It's inside the art department at Western Michigan University where I attended college before transferring to U of M. I'd gone back to visit and it felt so weird to be back there.

This one cracks me up. We went to a halloween party and I rented this flapper dress. I love that era. I honestly don't know if I was trying to look dead or what but I think I'd had a lot to drink at that point so who knows!