Self portraits have been around since not that long after the first picture was taken and it is essentially just a picture of you that you have either taken or directed the taking of. It can be anywhere on anybody but most people just take it of their face or somewhere on their body but it can be of your hair or of your legs or literally anywhere. I don't perticularly like taking selfies but i can see how others would like taking them to show their friends what they are doing. The reason that I don't like taking the practical kind of selfie is because it seems very vain but only when people do it everyday, if you take them every so often then i think that it is ok, if I take a selfie it isn't of my face, it is usually of my whole body, and it usually is far away. When I take a selfie I usually think about where i take it from sometimes other people have to help me take it, but that is pretty much the extent of my selfie taking.
Vivian Maier creative picture portfolio
In this task we had to put her pictures in an arrangement that your group thought of, we thought of putting the colourful pictures in the middle in a cross shape and the black and white ones around the outside in a square shape and then after the group made the arrangement, we had to write about vivian maier, what she did and her general background.
This is a documentary about Vivian Maier and how her work was found. It shows some of her best work and what kinds of camera she used, it tells us how she was very mysterious and didn't tell that many people about her life and didn't really talk to anyone at all apart from the people that she looked after.
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Vivian Maier self portraits
The following images are some of Vivian Maiers most iconic self portraits however, these are not the only self portraits that she did, there are many many more of them and also many normal pictures as well.
As you can see vivian often took pictures of her reflection if she was taking a selfie.
She would find a window or a mirror, or literally anything that she could see herself in and take a picture of it.
She would find a window or a mirror, or literally anything that she could see herself in and take a picture of it.
Older selfies
Here is an example of a 20th century self portrait, the camera is visible in 2 places because she has thought about this picture and placed the 2 mirrors in the exact right place so that there is 2 reflections of her face and camera.
Here is an example of a 19th century self portrait, this one is a lot different to the last one in the way that it is taken with a completely different camera, one were you have to wait for a small amount of time for the picture to acctually be taken wereas the camera in the 19th century image would have taken pictures a lot faster.
These selfies were taken long before the digital camera was invented. These pictures were taken with cameras where you have to wait for a little while for the picture to be taken, then when its taken hopefully you have a picture of you, this was really high quality technology in those days and you really could not get anything better than them in those days. The other picture of the girl taking the picture in the mirror, that camera is more like the modern day camera because it takes a picture almost instantly.
Famous people who take selfies
Celebrities often take selfies to tell they fans what they are doing or who they are with, and they then will probably post it on social media. This process is often because of the fans wanting to know what is going on with their favorite celebrities and who they are with, when this happens the fans are happy and the celebrities are happy also because they get attention and keep their fan base happy.
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The modern day image of a selfie
This is a modern looking selfie and it surprisingly looks quite similar to some selfies from the 19th and 20th century apart from the better quality and colour. But the modern selfie is often put online for all of their friends to see just like the selfies that celebrities take accept on a smaller scale.
Self portraits comparison
In photograph number one I can see a man standing in front of a shop window, he is completely shadowed out. He appears to holding an image which seems to be illuminating even though he is completely blacked out of the picture. Over all i think the main subject matter and kind of technique he has used is the fact that he is shadowed out and looks like he is holding an image that appears to be illuminated even though we can see hi which makes of course no sense at all, it could be something inside the store or house that he is looking into and he is just making it look like he is holding it. Also another technique he has used, I think, is that the is making it look very two demential, this may be the effect of the window but to me it looks very two demential with the cars in the background and the building. These are the main feelings about the picture. Picture number two is either taken through a door way or into a mirror, but if it is a mirror how come i can't see a camera in the reflection? so that is why I am convinced that it is a door. Through the door way we can see a block of wood which at first I thought was door but then I looked a bit closer and saw the handle for the "door" was just a hand and was just holding the block up, you can also see a large object which I'm not sure what it is, but the same thing happened again, when I looked closer and saw two feet at the bottom of the large object. I think that the main subject matter is the peoples body parts holding them up, because it takes a minute to realise they are there and I think that is what they wanted. In the next image we see a mans hand holding up a square piece of paper with the middle cut out of it also in the shape of a square. He is also holding the piece of paper up to a mans hand which is hanging out the window. The shadow is also very interesting. I think what he wanted was for someone looking at this not to know that it was just a guys hand and not just a picture because that is what it looked like for a bit with me until I looked at the shadow and it was see through.
In friedlander's picture I don't think he has used frames within frames but framing because he has that big window and it is literally the frame for the whole image because it isn't just reflecting him brut the whole image and everything around him. Woodman was of course using frames within frames which is the door way that in itself looks like a picture hanging on the wall and the two men holding things up are the picture. Josephson has used frames within frames with his paper square and the persons hand inside of it and also the shadow looks a little bit like a frame to me.
The thing that surprised me most about each of these was the hand and feet holding the objects up, the paper square wasn't a picture and the bright image. All of these things made me look really close at what was in the image and I am glad at the fact that these photographers did this.
The picture I enjoyed looking at the most was number one because it really made me think and it confused me. I still can't work out the bright image ad how he did that. This was the image that interested me the most because it was the only one that i couldn't really understand. I like the way that he I think that he tried to make it a bit two demential and I really hope hat is what they used on this image because that is what i like most about it.
In friedlander's picture I don't think he has used frames within frames but framing because he has that big window and it is literally the frame for the whole image because it isn't just reflecting him brut the whole image and everything around him. Woodman was of course using frames within frames which is the door way that in itself looks like a picture hanging on the wall and the two men holding things up are the picture. Josephson has used frames within frames with his paper square and the persons hand inside of it and also the shadow looks a little bit like a frame to me.
The thing that surprised me most about each of these was the hand and feet holding the objects up, the paper square wasn't a picture and the bright image. All of these things made me look really close at what was in the image and I am glad at the fact that these photographers did this.
The picture I enjoyed looking at the most was number one because it really made me think and it confused me. I still can't work out the bright image ad how he did that. This was the image that interested me the most because it was the only one that i couldn't really understand. I like the way that he I think that he tried to make it a bit two demential and I really hope hat is what they used on this image because that is what i like most about it.
final outcome photos
These are what I see as my final piece, I think that these pictures show all of the themes in which I was interested in, shadows, reflection and distortion, these images show al of them and I am satisfied with them.
Las meninas
Las medians is a self portrait painting of ladies in waiting and a very important looking little girl and they are all standing around her and trying to make her look fancy.
SELF PORTRAITS EVALUATION
In evaluation I think that this may not have impacted me a much as edges but it still taught me a lot of things like techniques
and famous people like Vivian Maier and that there are many ways of taking a selfie and it doesn't just have to be like a stereotypical selfie of your face and also that a picture of you can be a selfie as along as you have said when to take it and press the shutter button, it doesn't have to be any kind of camera it is still a selfie it doesn't matter who has taking it as long as you have said when to take it and set up the shot yourself. In conclusion I really dont think that this project will be effecting
the rest of my couse work as this really isnt the way that I do photography I think that maybe there were some aspects of this project that could have learnt from in some way and the way that I look at it I think that any work builds on my coursework and anything that does that is good but sometimes I guess you learn less from some things but it really just depends on the person.
In evaluation I think that this may not have impacted me a much as edges but it still taught me a lot of things like techniques
and famous people like Vivian Maier and that there are many ways of taking a selfie and it doesn't just have to be like a stereotypical selfie of your face and also that a picture of you can be a selfie as along as you have said when to take it and press the shutter button, it doesn't have to be any kind of camera it is still a selfie it doesn't matter who has taking it as long as you have said when to take it and set up the shot yourself. In conclusion I really dont think that this project will be effecting
the rest of my couse work as this really isnt the way that I do photography I think that maybe there were some aspects of this project that could have learnt from in some way and the way that I look at it I think that any work builds on my coursework and anything that does that is good but sometimes I guess you learn less from some things but it really just depends on the person.