INITIAL IDEAS

When thinking about the project, I started thinking about identity and how it reflected on me but this was when I decided that rather than thinking about my own personal identity I wanted to look into others. I started thinking about portraits and how when taken by someone else it doesn't necessarily reflect the person within the picture but how the person behind the camera wants them to appear. This is visible within the majority of pictures taken by someone else, whether this is a generic school picture where the subject of the photograph is being told to sit in a certain direction with their hands on their laps and the perfect smile. There is no element of choice.

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This is also visible within pictures taken by photographers as the subject is only there to model and not to reflect their own identity. Identity is shown solely through how they look, the rest of the image including the positioning, what they are wearing etc. may not necessarily be down to them. 

I want to challenge these conventions and I want to look into the world of the self taken photograph, also currently known as the 'selfie'. I am interested in how people photograph themselves or how people want to be shown - whether this is literally by taking a photograph of themselves or getting someone else to do it for them in a way that they want to be shown. Each of these pictures generally have a 'snapshot' kind of quality about them in contrast to the set up images before. 

I started thinking about the type of images that these would be taken on and generally nowadays they would be taken on the phone, and although this is a possibility I would want the images to be taken for this purpose giving the subject only one image to take their image - giving them a lack of choice between their pictures which would be the case if the image was taken digitally. When a self taken portrait is created it is usually one of many, where the subject has chosen their favourite and the one that they have deemed that they look better in. I'd be interested in taking this out of the equation and giving the subject only one photograph to do this in. 

I was thinking about how this could be done and I think the most natural way to get the effect that I am looking for would be to send the subject off over night or for however long to take the picture or have someone take the picture for them in a place that feels comfortable to them and how they want it to be shown. I think if I was there myself yet again the picture would be slightly contrived as they wouldn't feel as relaxed as not everyone would feel comfortable doing this in front of others - which is why I think giving them the option of taking the picture themselves or having someone else to do it for them works well. 

The construction of the whole image is down to them completely. 

I have been thinking about what this could be photographed on, which would give the snapshot quality that I want, while being easy to use. I thought about sending off a camera, but as I have previously stated I'm not sure that I want it to be digital. I think the use of disposable cameras could work really well for this as they are easy to use - everyone has used them before so it is likely that the images would come out well. It wouldn't work if I had to ask people to re shoot their image as it would give them chance to recompose it and change their mind. I also think this project would work effectively with a large number of images. It would be interesting to see a general consensus of a large number of different people, rather than just the students around me currently. It would be easy to send the cameras off to others and have them return them.