Assignment 6 – Final Project

Behind this laughing mask of mine 2020 – 2021 ‘Every profound spirit needs a mask’ Nietzsche, Beyond Good an Evil, 1888. In the politics of self we put up a front to others, and this is worn as a type of mask that projects as well as it guards. For identity we wear many masks

Summary for Part 5 – Self Directed Project.

Shaun Mullins, Untitled, test shots, 2020. Part five was the preparation for my fifth assignment, this assignment is a pathway to my final body of work, a self directed project which will be assignment six. My inspiration lead from my essay for assignment four, and through my reading, In Our Own Image, Third Edition, 2010,

Reading Photographs – In Our Own Image, by Fred Ritchin

Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips created the image, titled: Photo Op, in 2005. From Fred Ritchin’s book, In Our Own Image, his essay, Reading Photographs, (Ritchin, 2010) discusses the authenticity of a photograph. He asks, …after all that is happening in computer imaging can one safeguard the integrity of the photograph in its populist role

The ‘Mona Lisa’ by Leonardo da Vinci 1503/06 – 1517

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (1503/07 – 1517) This portrait is now probably the most famous portrait in the world. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci, he started painting this from around 1503 – 06 and is believed to have continued working on it until as late as 1517, close to his death. It is

Summary for Part 3, “Look at Me!” – The Representation of Self.

In section 3, “Look at Me!”, I studied the subject of ‘self’ and how it has and is used and interpreted in the portrait. I learned that the idea of the ‘selfie’ goes back beyond photography. Originally the early selfies where exclusively for the rich and powerful to express wealth and more importantly, power, examples

Susan Sontag’s criticism of Diane Arbus

From On Photography, (1977) Susan Sontag, London: Penguin, pages 32-48. Untitled – 1, 1970-1971. Diane Arbus Notes & passages of interest. Sontag begins her essay comparing an exhibition of 112 photographs by Diane Arbus that was exhibited in 1972 in at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York city that drew large crowds

Train Your Gaze

Roswell Angier, (2015) Train Your Gaze, (2nd ed.) London; New York: Bloomsbury, ISBN: 978-1-4725-2510-9. Divided into eleven chapters, each chapter ends with an assignment to put into practice the portraiture style that is discussed for that chapter, thus this book provides precisely what its title implies. That is teaching the various theoretical styles that have