November 2023, Great Self-Portrait Photographers

Dear Matt,

Keeping you informed about happenings at Deliberate Light: photos to browse or buy, photography instruction (see also Digital Photo Academy), and services. Also, my thoughts on a photography subject: this month, Great Self-Portrait Photographers.

NEWS

Upcoming Workshops. I am scheduled to teach the following workshops this month.

November 18, location: Bartram’s Garden, Philadelphia
Bartram’s Garden is one of the many hidden gems within the city of Philadelphia. It is a 50-acre National Historic Landmark with historic buildings, historic gardens, meadows, woods and walking trails along the Bartram’s Mile portion of the Schuylkill River Trail system. There are many wonderful sights in this world of nature embedded in an urban setting with a view of the skyscrapers of Center City Philadelphia.

• Mastering Your Camera Controls (1.5 hours) – DSLR/Mirrorless/Compact cameras (smartphone tutorial available separately)

• Composition in the Field (3 hours) – walking tour around the venue with instruction and hands-on practice composing photos (bring any camera)

Coming classes on December 16 in Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.

New Photo. The glow of sunrise off Puerto Rico’s north coast creates a lovely soft pastel contrast in the clouds. Later, when the sun is fully up, the clouds will be brilliant. I look for meaning in the image I have of the bright and dark clouds seeming to cradle the coming sunlight, as though protecting it until it emerges to illuminate. For a more detailed, enlarged view, see it on my website.

VIEWS

A few months ago, I described a few great portrait photographers, and I thought you might like to see four self-portrait photographers I consider to be scary good. I say scary because these are not the usual selfies documenting a party or vacation. They are at the very least controversial, if not a little disturbing, because, by and large, they intensely explore self-identity.

I have said before that I seek, in art, the kind of beauty that pulls me out of myself with something different, and these photographers do just that. All four of them are women and there are several more women I could have included, like Claude Cahun, Trish Morrissey, and Jo Spence, with whom I am just not that familiar.

I include these four photographers in my newsletter, because, frankly, these women deserve to be known. I strive in my newsletters to provide a break from the stresses and distresses of life – this will be a different kind of break from the ordinary.

Cindy Sherman

Honestly, I think Cindy Sherman is over-rated, but I cannot deny that I get drawn into scrolling through her work. She explores the relationship between her own identity and stereotypes in society by placing herself in a variety of situations, from mundane to glamorous to bizarre. It is best to view her images in the context of the entire series of photos they are part of, rather than as individual shots. In her breakout series, Untitled Film Stills, she photographed herself in 70 different scenes reminiscent of imaginary 50’s and 60’s movies to draw attention to their female stereotypes. Here are two examples from that series, though to appreciate them, you really should view more from the series. (Click on the thumbnail image to see the website image and then click on the image to enlarge it.)

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman was enormously skilled at finding ways to express her inner life. Her images have a detached, perhaps dreamlike, but very personal feel to me, all having a deeply intense impact. She often portrayed herself enigmatically and in vulnerable positions. Some, like the first below, are both esthetically and emotionally fascinating, while others are just intense. None are superficial. Click to view these images before reading on.

I hope you viewed these photos before reading this sentence, because after I found out that Francesca Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22, her images have a profoundly different effect.

Zanele Muholi

Moving from fragility to an artist who exudes strength, Zanele Muholi explores their South African heritage of race and gender identity, often with ferocity. Two things often mark their self- portraits: the fiercely intense eyes dramatically set in a very dark face and the use of every-day materials, like the clothes pins and the wheat stalks in the two photos below, to reflect their own history but done with great dignity. Zanele Muholi also explores race and gender identity with the same combination of strength and dignity as in their self-identity portraits. Click to view these two photos.

Kelli Connell

With an impressively seamless use of Photoshop, Kelli Connell is most well known for her double self-portraits, portraying herself twice in the same photo as different characters. Some of the photos are wonderfully ordinary, some are beautifully executed, and some are, well, kind of disturbing. Click to view these two photos.

Not all great self-portraitists are women (Robert Mapplethorpe springs to mind) and there are many great self-portraits by photographers of both sexes who have specialized in other kinds of photography, but among those who have emphasized self-portraiture in their overall work, it seems to me women are very disproportionally represented. I leave it to you to speculate on why that is.

Carl Finkbeiner

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