In assignment 2 I used photos of myself as a child. In part 3 I have started to research photographers who have re-enacted old family photos. The artists have chosen self-portraits and either played their younger selves or other members of their family.
For this exercise I felt I wanted to produce a straight photograph with myself included. I wanted to choose a good memory having dealt with negative events in my last assignment. This made me think about how I wanted to portray myself. How could I make it interesting and show feelings? I also wanted to continue practising indoor lighting as I have found this very difficult up to now.
Nostalgia was going to be the major concept and I decided to re-enact a typical Saturday morning playing Subbuteo on my own listening to music on Radio 1 and to my LPs. This was probably around 1977/78. I thought I would set up the pitch and the players and have a Radio 1 logo and album cover in the background.
With this in mind I went in to the loft and retrieved my box of Subbuteo teams and accessories. On opening the box I found a catalogue and inside there was a photo of a boy playing Subbuteo. I remembered this photo and decided to re-enact that photo. I had the goals and the pitch side photographers. I felt this added a nice relationship with what I am doing now. I changed my shirt for a similar checked style as the boy in the photo.
I setup my lamp and tripod and tried out my various lenses to reproduce the required depth of field. This was the most difficult aspect which in the end I have not achieved. Focusing and the over exposure of my hand and crossbar were problematic. However, I think I have been quite successful in getting up close as without the catalogue image I would probably have gone for a wider angle shot which would not have portrayed the action. Interestingly it was effectively a still life. Nothing was moving.
I imported my image in to lightroom, cropped it to the same aspect ratio and also warmed it up a little. The final image is not as sharp as I would have liked and I will try out some other setups using more natural light.
I decided to create my own composition and chose to use one of the photographer figures. A typical self-portrait idea is for the photographer to capture their reflection in glass or a mirror. I decided to get the photographer to stare straight at the camera and thereby ignoring the action on the pitch. He would also be staring at me, the photographer.
I thought this was an intriguing scene. I added myself in the form of my ‘flick-to-kick’ finger. Overall I was pleased with the outcome as it captures a childhood memory and adds the element of ‘Who is the photographer now?’. In this scene I do become a subject of interest even though you can’t see my face. The figurine brings me in to the frame even though it is only made of plastic and has no emotions or reactions.
Martyn Rainbird 