Final project statement for class
When envisioning my final project this semester, I knew that I wanted to build off my final project last semester, in which I used photography to explore the intricate emotions surrounding my struggle with dissociation and to capture the experience with artistic intent. I wanted to continue to use photography this semester to explore my own intricate feelings and emotions, but rather than a continuation of my project on dissociation, I wanted to focus more on an expression of identity in a variety of spaces.
Right before beginning this project, I became enamored with the idea of reflections in unconventional spaces. Seeing the overlap of light in multi-dimensional planes and getting lost in the abstraction—being able to see reflective spaces interact with the spaces around them—I was intrigued by how common I found myself apart of these abstractions. As I began this project, my intent was to create these moments myself, photographing my friends in reflective spaces, making use of their faces and bodies and the spaces they often find themselves in to explore their own identities in relation to their environments.
However, as I continued working on this project, I began to focus solely on my own identity rather than others in these created spaces. I find this to be a reoccurring theme within the artistic projects I set for myself, always returning to a study of self through self-portraiture. I found interest in how I fit into these abstract moments and how the space around me could be manipulated. Using photography in this way has always been a therapeutic experience for me, and I find myself enjoying self-portraiture more and more as my photography evolves.
By the end of working on this final project, I had begun using these portraits to delve further into my own complex feelings surrounding identity. As someone who has always struggled with recognition of self, whether it be a detachment from my physical appearance or psychological misunderstanding of how I fit into the spaces I occupied, I found comfort in having this reminder that I not only exist in many different spaces, but I am also able to control the spaces I exist within.
For this project I wanted to incorporate aspects of snapshot photographers such as Nan Goldin and Jim Goldberg who use their cameras to immortalize the people in their lives and/or themselves without emphasis on traditional photographic techniques, capturing experiences as they arise. I wanted to absorb that aspect of intimacy into my own work, that comfort of informality. Within my use of lighting and colors, I was inspired by the work of photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and Gregory Crewdson. DiCortia and Crewdson’s use of intentional lighting to create more emotive works within composed spaces was something that I tried to subsume within my own work. I was also intrigued by Cameron’s use of harsh lighting and contrast as well as her more softly focused, monochromatic portraits.
Throughout this final project, I feel I have become more comfortable in the notion of self-portraiture as a means of self-understanding. As my photography evolves, I find myself making more use of bright and high contrasted colors, snapshot style images and self-portraiture to express my personal experiences. I plan to continue this style of emotional self-portraiture, and eventually want to begin work on an extensive body of work involving this method.
