However if you give a presentation of your own self-portrait work You are really putting yourself out there. Not just your work, but you personally.
Silly me, I volunteered to do a program for the local camera club that I've been member of for 7 years. Why? Because next months Show & Tell category was to be Selfies/Selfportraits. And I knew I had quite the collection I could share and offer some interesting info on the subject. So, why not share?
When I started skimming my Lightroom Library to gather the goods I was actually quite amazed at the number I had. Not just from my iPhone but from some semi-serious Canon shoots, most of which were in 2012. As I made preparations I really got excited about it. These were strange feelings. I'm usually so nervous and stressed but this was fun.
I narrowed it down to 100 photos, then added some of my friend Sarah's that she offered and threw in a few from a guy at the last minute lest the men feel left out.
You see a good percentage of this club is men over 65 and I had a feeling a lot of them might stay home. (In fact afterward one guy told me he almost did and was glad he decided to come.)
For some reason the 'feeling of vulnerability' never did rear its ugly head. I talked about it and all the reasons why we shy away from selfies but I felt like I was in a bubble of protection. (Oh, thank you God!)
The whole thing went well. After our one hour of technical difficulty when my Macbook Pro wouldn't talk to the projection system, I had to load everything to a jump drive and use their PC. Thankfully Kathy had a few vague memories of how to use a PC and she helped with the slides. Thank you so much Kathy. And she even showed up on her birthday!
Here is a link to a movie I had created in a class that was a selfie shoot in 2012. I included a lot of not so great photos because I wanted it to just be real and normal. Self Shoot
Perhaps I'll do a little series on selfies this month......
I am so glad that it went well, except of course for the technical difficulty, which it seems to happen more often than not with laptops and projection systems.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite saying...I love computers...when they work! Putting a selfie out there for everyone to see takes courage. Courage to accept that you look like that. courage to not care. Through blogging I have learned to go ahead. It's all about self acceptance, I guess. Love that pic of you and your daughter.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks for that compliment but she is my grand daughter!
Deletejust checked out your video...so great!!!
ReplyDeleteI took a couple rounds of Vivienne McMaster's Be Your Own Beloved self-portrait class, and found that it really did change my perception of (and relationship with) my physical self, especially as related to appearing in photographs. Mostly it was a matter of taking lots and lots of photos and getting used to seeing myself in them. First I began to detach from the "selfness" of them and to be able to look at them as I would photos of anyone else. Then I decided I didn't look too bad for an "old lady," which was something I had begun feeling self-conscious about. With or without a class, I think self-portraits are a great avenue for self-exploration, and for self-acceptance, too.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet your presentation was wonderful, Roxi. I wish I could have been there! I'd love to see you do some posts on the subject.
Lovely video & selfies, Roxi! Also the one of you and your grand daughter ... One can see you're family - the pretty eyes & facial features!
ReplyDeleteSo gorgeous. Your gorgeous my friend.
ReplyDelete