Week 14
Well, this was it. I am officially a MASTER in Photography, well, almost anyhow when all my classes finish.
This week we had our final assignment and their respective presentations. I feel like this is the class that I will miss the most. Not only did it help me massively with figuring out how to finish my thesis, it helped me to understand who I am as a photographer and the types of personal projects I want to continue making now that I will be graduated . I must admit I have missed our weekly readings, they were always so insightful and thought provocative. I think I will start reading a photographic article a week and write a small comment about it, to try and keep the creative juices flowing.
Anyway, for our final project we had to have a body of work consisting of 8-8 pictures, where 2/3 of the photographs had to be new to the class. I kept on working the project I started last week, and decided to take in all the feedback I got. We also had to write an artist statement about the work and this is what I wrote:
DAILY TRUTH
“Using photography as a means for reflection and self-awareness, “Daily Truth” is an ongoing project that deems to explore the true nature of my private and public identity. Faced with the pressure society bares on one’s appearance, I have decided to study how unconsciously this has affected my daily routine. It only seemed fitting to use an instant camera, the Polaroid Spectra, as this medium carries an aesthetic and connotation associated with truth, which is this project’s intent.
By photographing myself immediately after waking up and unaware of my appearance is, the authenticity of the moment becomes constant throughout the project as well as refraining me from wanting or knowing that I should alter anything about myself. By also presenting a photograph of the final product, the moment I am completely ready and about to leave the house, I am able to visually show the effort and time I put into transforming myself from Raw to Edited.
Mimicking my life, and the motions I go through daily to find myself presentable for society, this project is presented in a calendar type format to emphasize that unconsciously I transform myself everyday. By having each day presented with the staged version of myself [the top photograph], I am inviting the viewer to interact with this calendar by physically opening a window which is concealing the raw appearance of my identity and expose a part of it I have come to believe is only fit for my eyes only.”
The images below is what I ended up showing as my final:
These were the base images, and then I displayed them like this:
