How can one represent the many personalities and alter egos of one person through photography??

Process: For this project I had decided I wanted to explore my own identities and alter egos, which would mean doing self-portraiture similar to Cindy Sherman's work. I had the idea of using passport inspired photos as a form of identification for each character- in order to achieve this I set my camera up on the ledge below my bathroom mirror, and set a 10 second self timer. My shower curtain is directly across from this mirror-ledge, so I positioned myself to be directly in front of it, while also trying to imitate the kind of posture and facial expressions one makes when getting an ID photo done. Once I had taken those initial photos of my many different characters, I looked around my house for settings that I felt matched this emotion or aesthetic. Along with the setting, I thought about how these characters would act in relationship to the setting. For example, one of my characters is supposed to be a depressed and drained version of myself, I positioned by camera in my living room, and instead of just sitting on the couch I decided to curl up, almost dissolving into the cushions. I also found myself doing strange poses, such as going upside down or laying limp on the floor like a dead body, in order to portray the strangeness of being the depressed version of myself I am trying to capture in that shoot. So I did this with the many different versions of myself. For choosing what characters I created, I used only alter egos that I have already embodied in real life. I found some challenges in getting good composition and angles since I am taking them all myself, using surfaces and self timer- which also created some challenges in getting the right settings and what-not.

Reflection: I believe my concept was adequetly achieved. I think I struggled in getting the type of composition and lighting I was hoping for, but for what I was able to do on my own I think I did myself justice. I believe I did a good job creating my characters and setting their scenes and positioning, which added to the storytelling aspect I was trying to achieve. I really enjoy doing different and strange makeup looks, and I had a lot of fun replicating previous characters I have embodied, and trying to conjure up some from accumulative previous characters. I wish I had more light sources and differences in that sense, but I do like the way they turned out regardless. Doing this project I was able to do further experimentation with my understanding of compostion, distance, and shutterspeed which all played a crucial role in the storytelling of my characters. I had fun playing around with composition using only pre-existing surfaces in my house, and I believe it turned out well. I struggled with getting the right ISO for the lighting in my house, but I found a way to achieve what I wanted using the flash on my camera, which created really interesting shadows and silhouette for my scenes. Doing this project has really inspired me to do further artworks on my identity, and I am interested in exploring more of my characters and making up new ones. I am very proud of the way I captured my own essence through each different character, they are all visually very different, but you can very well understand how they all belong to one person. I am overall very proud of this project.

Sneak peak!