Piloting the Gaze: The Art of Self-Portraiture
The act of taking self-portraits became a swiss army knife–a tool that had rendered many functions within my relationship to photography. Being inside and alone through the winter of COVID-19 challenged my creative potential. The winter is normally quite restrictive for a studio-less, nature-seeking photographer like myself; however, this time around, I was also left model-less…and portraiture is a hunger I must satiate. Some photographers resorted to “Virtual Photoshoots”–aka, the act of a photographer taking screenshots of a model posing on the other line of their Zoom screen. While I applaud this out of the box thinking, portraiture, to me, has historically been an opportunity to live less in the digital world. It is a chance to feel real, to share stories, to empathize, to bond with the energy of another, to connect with someone tangible. That someone was now going to be myself.
I turned to self-portraits as a way to stay inspired, but gained much more.
First of all, pertaining to my own photographic approach: photographing another individual is an intimate and vulnerable exchange. The subject must bare themselves in a certain fashion; the subject says to the photographer, “fixate me into permanence”. The subject surrenders control of their physical presentation. As the photographer, we spend more time with this individual beyond these tender moments of capture–our models are carried on our storage devices, loaded onto screens, tediously corrected and altered in their physical appearance. To me, this was always an act to be taken seriously. There is no such thing as a surface-level shoot-and-burn click-it-and-be-done portrait. By nature of the art, the photographer immortalizes their subject–this should be done in high regard with great sensitivity.
Through self-portraits, I turned this act upon myself. Not only did I turn the vulnerability, the intimacy, the immortality upon myself–I also turned the gaze upon myself. Embodying the role of both photographer and model granted me the ability to control how I could be perceived. If I were to be Japanese artist in the late 1990s, I would perhaps be subjected to the label of “onnanoko shashin”, or “girl photography”–a [belittling] title often endowed to young women photographers “challenging the status quo of a male-dominated industry, reclaiming the gaze in provocative self-portraits, and intimately documenting their personal lives”. Self-portraiture, to Japanese artists such as Yurie Nagashima, became quite a rebellious feminist gesture against the conventional gaze of the male photographer. Moreover, model Emily Ratajkowski speaks on behalf of reclaiming her own image from the external capturer: “I’ve become more familiar with seeing myself through the paparazzi’s lenses than I am with looking at myself in the mirror. And I have learned that my image, my reflection, is not my own.” I recommend reading about Ratajkowski’s harrowing experience as a subject to the male gaze in the modeling industry–one that holds great implications for not only her identity, reputation, and bodily rights, but to models at large. To be used for one’s image–for one’s body, at that–is a uniquely disheartening experience. We cannot escape your shell; how we are seen by others can very much be shaped by the photos that exist of us and the narratives that follow.
I was inspired by this seemingly radical act of reclaiming the projection of my own identity, and consequently, taking back my own power through self-portraiture. My inclination towards self-portraiture also consisted of an urge to know myself better. It was the bridge that brought me back into my own body; to become less foreign, less hollow, and less estranged unto myself. As I undertook my own image with the sensitivity and vulnerability by which I offer to others in their portraits, I could begin to foster a new perspective and relationship with myself as well. Like Nagashima, self-portraiture is a way to challenge, confront, and express a history of self-resentment, sexuality, and mental illness. Like Ratajkowski, owning her image was a way to exert her own autonomy and grasping the true meaning of empowerment in her respective industry. And as for one of the most renowned self-portrait artists, Cindy Sherman, using performance through photography was a way to criticize the artificiality in performance itself. I have drawn inspiration from all of these figures, and continue to use my own background, experiences, and self-perception as a driving force behind my creations.
I am motivated by my ability to build worlds through the camera, and place myself within them. I am empowered by the trail of evidence I am building of myself through time–the tangible evidence of my inner and outer evolutions. And I am rewarded by the self-confidence, self-love, and self-respect as a consequent positive externality of these projects.
