Description
While every image that we create contains an element of the self, only the self-portrait holds the photographer’s distinct personal perspective at its center. As we grapple with fluctuating times and shifting notions of identity, we will explore the ways in which the practice of self-portraiture can also shift. How can we challenge and expand the boundaries of this way of making work? The work of photographers who have used a variety of modes of self-portraiture will be presented for robust discussion, among them Tarrah Krajnak, Paul Sepuya, and Carrie Mae Weems. Through weekly exercises and supported by in-class critique, students will experiment with a variety of alternative approaches to the self-portrait—still life, landscape, portraiture, and more conceptual and collaborative practices, such as text art—alongside traditional methods, with the aim of finding an individual approach to the expression of the self.