Self Portraits

So I had an interesting conversation via email with a young photographer that just from where I also went to highschool, in Springville, Iowa. When I went to school there we had 10 cameras and a full black and white darkroom at our fingertips. I was lucky enough to be able to start shooting at a young age of 12 because of the great facilities.

Anyhow, her assignment was simple, an 8x10 print in an acetate sleeve of a self portrait. She sent me some examples and I gave my critique, some advice. Below I'll rehash my ideas the ol' blog.

In going in depth about what I thought made a good self portrait turned into what inspires me and what makes up interesting photography in general. For me it comes down to the fact that photography is a form of visual communication. I had a great friend, scott polach give me the advice to always try and tell a story. "Who doesn't love a story?", he said. That has stuck with me since then and been a great help when I'm stuck when editing my book or thinking about a new project. It's not that an 8 image narrative sequence is necessary and it can be much harder at times to say all you want to say in one image.

I then went to show her some of my images that I've done about exploring the summer house I stay in with my wife's family in Loja, Spain.


"capturing the light 1"

"exploring : bathroom"

In the end, when discussing self portraits and portraits in general, honest communication and good technical finishing really makes it for me.