12-2-21

Photographed on 12/2/2021

Published on 3/11/2023

This was one of the first "photo sessions" I ever did. I always seem to get a bit reflective near the end of a year, and after a long 2021, I felt like taking some pictures of myself. I don't typically take pictures of myself, though I have always enjoyed performing for the camera on video. My Nikon D3300 was still a bit of a mystery to me at this point and I was not sure how to set a timer in order to take individual photos of myself.

In my infinite wisdom, instead of looking up how to use the camera, I set it to record and did many poses in the span of a few minutes. I then exported the video file and took individual screenshots of the best video frames on my computer. The first and last shot in the album are the only photos that were actually taken by the camera not using the video function. It is also why those photos are bigger than the others.

Considering the pictures were taken from a video file I'm actually quite pleased with how they turned out. In this session I wanted to play around with the idea of three different versions of myself. These are represented as me, myself, and I wearing glasses, sunglasses, and no glasses respectively. I wanted to show the different aspects of my personality through these personas as well.

When I am "me" I am performing a sort of warm, caring persona. When "myself" wears his sunglasses he is being funny and self-aggrandizing. But when "I" remove the barriers in front of my eyes, that is when I am my truest and most vulnerable self. You can see this in the different poses and expressions I perform, "I" is shy to be seen so clearly by others without the defense of a performance to give him comfort.

After several years I still consider this one of the most effective and telling expressions of my sense of self. It has been a favorite personal project of mine and I enjoy looking back on it for reflection from time to time.

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