Self Portraits

Equally daunting and rewarding, self portraiture has both intrigued and challenged me throughout the years. I have found the practice to hold limitless potential for creativity and expression, yet also cause a great deal of frustration.  Still, I'm repeatedly drawn  in by my excitement for the unexpected.

Simply standing in front of the camera is intimidating, no matter how many times I do it. Shooting alone, running back and forth to check the settings, and sometimes walking away with a completely different idea than you went in with… you have to be open to the experience.

Yet, many of my favorite portraits of myself have come from these sessions. I allow myself the space to create strange illusions: multiple and long exposures, abnormal lighting effects, camera distortion and blur. 

Perhaps seeking to illustrate the multitude of selves that live within me, I keep shooting these portraits year after year, waiting to see what appears  behind the lens…

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"It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to its life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit.  

It must stand for the actual, vital first-hand experiences of the one who made it, and must represent his deep-down impression not only of physical nature but more especially and necessarily his understanding of the out working of that great spirit which makes nature so intelligible to us that it ceases to be a phantasm and becomes a sweet, a superb, a convincing reality."

--Louis Sullivan

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Look within, and marvel at what you find.

xo - Jen