Self Portrait

Moving on to our second semester our first weekly project to coincide with our 'People - The Human Condition' brief is to take a self-portrait. Very apprehensive at this stage in regards to taking photographs of myself as I prefer to be behind the camera (especially in case I break the lens . . . ha ha) however joking aside I do appreciate that understanding how I feel in front of my own camera will enlighten me of the fears that my future sitters may have!

To think beforehand our self portrait should be influenced around the writing of Susan Sontag, quotes taken from her book (Sontag.S.1979,'On Photography'. Penguin, London.

"A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs - especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past - are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance. The lover's photograph hidden in a married woman's wallet, the poster photograph of a rock star tacked up over an adolescents bed, the campaign-button image of a politician's face pinned on a voter's coat, the snapshots of a cabin-driver's children clipped to the visor - all such talismanic uses of photographs express a feeling both sentimental and implicitly magical:they are attempts to contact or lay claim to another reality."

This is the photograph I presented for our weekly brief critique. No post production treatment was used apart from a little cropping to frame my photograph.

I decided to take a personal glimpse into my life with my daughter Shannon. A usual awakening to my alarm clock to find that she has sneaked into my bed during the night. I used a fast shutter speed to portray the madness in my life and the stillness of my daughter sleeping to capture how as a mother her contentment will always be my first priority.