Exploring Thy Self

The Concept:

My final project is aimed to be an exploration of myself and my personal values as well as emotional state of mind.  This past year I have experienced so many different emotions both good and bad, and I intend to explore these feelings through a series of self-portraits and body landscapes.  This is very much an extension of something I explored in my darkroom photography course and would like to continue exploring with my own body.  This is also a means for me to step outside my comfort zone both in my way of photographing and also just physically taking photographs of my own self.  I plan to do many of my photographs as double exposures, portraying  more than one emotion in one photo. I’m a portrait lover.  I love making people feel comfortable and like themselves, and this is very important in my day-to-day life, especially with my own self.  As I develop these and bring them to life, I plan on using the bromoil technique in order to really highlight what I feel is important to me.  This technique will give me the opportunity to further develop my ideas through washed out tones in some areas and high contrast in others, creating different moods.

The Logistics:

I plan on using exclusively only my own images taken in a studio-like setting with studio lights and a plain, white backdrop for my project.  This will be done with my camera set up on a tripod and having someone assist in pressing the shutter, preferably my sister.  I will be using my digital camera to take the photos, then converting these images into digital negatives as double exposures via photoshop and exposing them in the darkroom.  From here I plan on using the bromoil to do the bleaching process.  I know this will be a lot of steps per photo, but I’m intending it to be the perfect process for the emotions I want to get across.  I do not believe that one semester will be enough time for this project.  Given how the project unravels for me, I feel like my ideas will develop as the process goes on, and something that could be ever-expanding.  However, I do hope to get a great start on the exploration of this subject matter and the developing process as it relates to my personal photographs.  I do not believe there will be any pitfalls in this development/photographing process. Other than the extensive post-production process of the bromoil, and making sure I understand how to use this process in a constructive and effective way.