Expanding the Initial Idea

Progressing from last weeks thoughts, I 'fleshed out'  the intial research idea under the following suggested sub-headings. This was in preperation for our first tutorial with Ed Dimsdale, of LCC.

Question
How does a viewer judge a subject in a self-portrait? What control does a photographer have on that judgement?

Create a Title
The Challenging Portraits of Selves.

Expand the questions into a paragraph
There is often considered a triangle relationship with a portrait photograph, between the viewer, the subject and the photographer. The photographer is often considered to have a form of power here, controlling or inciting the viewer's opinion of the subject; think of Martin Parr, Diane Arbus, Bill Owens. When the three-way becomes two-way, when the photographer is the subject, the viewer is aware of the photographer's editing and presenting decisions affected by placing themselves in front of the camera. The viewer is no longer just looking but being looked at. How is the viewer's judgement of the subject now challenged or influenced by the self-portraying artist?

Three Photographers
Nikki S Lee

 

Jo Spence

Sam Taylor-Wood

Other areas of investigation
Self-portraits in painting, in video.

Ed provided the following suggestions for research:

• Liz Rideal's work.
• A previous exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery of Rembrants self-portraits.
• The book Portraiture by Richard Brilliant.
• Possibly a chapter from Graham Clarke's The Photograph.
• An early chapter from Camera Lucida where Barthes talks of anxiety of being photographed.
• Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic concept - The Mirror Stage - the developmental stage where a person recognises and understands their own reflection. 
• The notion of 'The Real' as discusssed by Catherine Belsey in Culture and the Real.
• Francessca Woodman - the notion of performance.
• Hypollyte Byard's self portrait as a drowned man.

My task now is to look into these further, to help gain more of a direction to the project, and begin writing up a detailed proposal.