Self Portraits
Back - ↑ - examples
This subject begat output both in EyV - and C&N and a piece in the zine.
In the blog entry for 6th November [2018] I observed that,
The November edition of the RPS Journal features their 2018 awards and includes a piece on Juno Calypso (winner of the Vic Odden award). Calypso uses an alter ego, Joyce, to explore "female stereotypes and self-perception". This merits an entry in the BAPhot Photographers Gallery. This also reminded me of the self portrait with a hare photograph, seen in the Portrait Gallery several times that I traced to Sam Taylor-Johnson so she has an entry too.
Fig. 2 Sam Taylor-Johnson, Self-portrait in Single-breasted Suit with Hare, 2001
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This led me to thinking about staged self portraiture which seems to be the preserve of female photographers. While most male photographers make mirror self portraits (Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Bill Brandt † and Stanley Kubrick, to name just thee in the gallery).
Fig. 4 Bill Brandt, self portrait †
Fig. 5 Stanley Kubrick, self portrait, 1949
† I had assumed, incorrectly, that this was a mirror self portrait by Brandt. It is, in fact, a photograph by Laelia Goehr. More details here.
Some female photographers take a more elaborate, sometimes theatrical approach, Calypso and Taylor-Johnson as above, but also Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman and Francesca Woodman.
Fig. 7 Cindy Sherman, Untitled, from The Indomitable Spirit, 1979
Fig. 8 Francesca Woodman, Self-Deceit #4, Rome
Jeff Wall is an exception to this with Picture for Women (does he use a mirror?), while Ilse Bing and (later) Sally Mann sit somewhere between the two camps.
Fig. 10 Ilse Bing, Self portrait with Leica, 1931
Fig. 11 Sally Mann, self portrait, (ambrotype) c. 2006
Is this generalisation valid and, if so, why is this?