Project 2-Portraits/self-portraits

Tammy Moll
Project 2 Essay
October 1, 2010

At the beginning of this assignment I started thinking of the people I love most. Of course my husband of 12 years, Alan was my first choice. My daughter, Loretta would have been my second but she lives in Virginia. So I began with Alan doing one of the things he loves most; working in his yard.
My first shots of Alan I thought to be too white as he is pale in skin tones and his hair is gray and white. But once I started looking at the whites in comparison to the blue of his jeans and the green of the grass I saw that this was Alan. He is not a man to stand out but one who prefers to blend in. As this picture shows he is very determined, almost obsessive about the grass being mowed just right.
My second and third portraits of Alan where taken in Hutchinson after a dinner date we had when he joined me at Zelle’s where I took the opportunity to take my first self-portrait shot. This shot is of our hands together. I switched this to a black and white as I wanted the picture to be of our wedding rings not of the colors within the photo. After dinner we walked down the street to the bridge on Main Street. It was about 5:30 in the evening. Along the way I took the chance to do a Lee Friedlander shot of myself in a store front window. I left this shot alone as the colors of the window dressings are intense.
As we walked up to the water I noticed a bench along the west side and the sun dropping down behind it. My first thoughts were that this would give me a self-portrait where the sun would blacken the subject out. And since I don’t really care being the subject of the picture this appealed to me. So I first took a shot of Alan to see if it did turn out the way I wanted and as it did I then had Alan shot the same shot of me. I made sure that my head was tilted just so, outlining my features so that they could easily be seen even though I was mostly blacked out.
Self-portrait number 4 came as leaned over the edge and had Alan shot my reflection in the water. I see this as a true way we never get to see others. That somewhere in most people, including me, is a place that is distorted and there is no way of correcting it. It just is part of you. Completing my self- portraits could not happen if they did not include my husband as we are one. I was messing around with shadow pictures until I found one I liked. These were tried against the water and against just the grass but I found I liked it better when our shadows where put in the bushes with the grass taking up more than half of the picture. I feel all of our lives are filled with shadows and sometimes we need to face the darkness. Yet I know that I need not face my own darkness alone, I have Alan.
At one point I took a shot of Alan sitting on a rock with his hands on each side of his face looking like a little boy who just wanted to be done working and wanted to go off to play. The waters swirling behind him would have been a great playground. The color of the water with the sun shining down on it at the angle made the white of the water much brighter that day. I love this shot.
As we were leaving the park Alan stepped out on to an overhang and I took several shots of him looking into the water. After the first few shots I realized that stepping behind the small tree that I stood by and including the leaves made for a better effective picture. I love the way the leaves blur but just enough. The branches over Alan’s head balance the picture and I like how the water looks murky. The leaves sort of direct the eye to Alan.
Included also in the group are two photos of my nephew, Ethan. Ethan is a 6 grade JV football player at ACGC in Litchfield. He is also one of my favorite subjects to photograph when he doesn’t know I am taking the photos. One of the shots he looks very serious as he watches his teammates play. This is one of the things that I love most about Ethan, his feelings are written all over his face. I took this photo and played around in photo shop changing the background. I removed a person’s legs above his head and lassoed him and inversed the lasso to blacken out the background without harming him. I then played around with the different type of artist touches to get the effect I have on him. The second shot, him facing me smiling, I again went to photo shop and used the smudging tool to remove another player behind him and then tried another artistic touch to give the picture a more painted look.
This is what I love to do, take pictures and then play with them to make them one of a kind.
My Flickr link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53360498@N08/5041890862/