Sometime last September I started doing a photo self-portrait project with two friends of mine, one of whom was moving to Newcastle to study abroad for two semesters. At the beginning of the project I was all gung-ho, like, "Sweet! It's gonna be so awesome to see how I change every day! And how I've changed from the beginning to the end when it's done! And what a feeling of accomplishment! I'M SO IN."
By approximately Day 50 (let's not lie, what I really mean is Day 10) the novelty had worn off and it had started to get tedious. It was less, "YES GONNA SET UP THE CAMERA AND TAKE A GREAT PICTURE OF MYSELF AND IT'S GONNA BE FAB!" and more "Dear God, I swear if I have to look at my own fucking face one more time I'm going to maim myself just so I'll have some variety in what I have to look at." And then! Around this same time, we began to spend the entire first half of spring semester in my drawing class DRAWING self-portraits!
Drawing myself was so much worse than photographing myself, and if I thought I was tired of looking at myself during the photo project, it was nothing compared to the hours upon hours I spent starting at one picture of myself in order to translate it to charcoal. I really couldn't stand to do both the portraits for drawing class and the photo portraits, and the drawing class ones weren't exactly optional. I dropped out of the photo project around Day 150, I think, and even though I didn't get that feeling of accomplishment from seeing it all the way through, it was a much better feeling to be able to look in a mirror without sobbing because oh my God, the face, it is a thing of my repetitive nightmares.
Where am I going with all of this? Well! After spending the first half of the semester working on self-portraits, my drawing teacher decided it would be so! cool! to have our final project be -- can you guess? I bet you can! -- self-portraits! Thankfully for me, we are allowed to use any medium for the final project, which means much more setting up of tripods and adjusting of shutter speeds and much less sitting alone in a fifth-floor art studio in the middle of downtown Atlanta at ten o'clock on a Saturday night and sobbing uncontrollably because I have spent two hours drawing one eye twenty times in a row and you have got to be kidding me, THAT STILL ISN'T THE RIGHT SHAPE.
So, long story short(er), I am taking a picture of myself every day for a month. This project has actually been easier and more enjoyable so far, though, because 1) if I don't do it, I kind of fail art class, so you know, that's good motivation right there, and 2) I'm taking every picture at the same time every day -- 9PM -- and having a set time to stop and click a picture, no matter what I'm doing, makes it a lot easier to remember. Plus I think it adds more interest to the project. Also, I can post the pictures here, so everyone who reads this (aka my mama) will be able to see what I'm doing every day at 9PM!
3.26.2007 
3.27.2007
3.28.2007
2 comments:
Love the little insight into your 9pm life. Maybe I should take pictures at the same time every night. No, wait, I would be in the bed all the time. Pretty boring. Okay, so maybe I should just take some sort of picture each day. That would work.
P.S. I loved seeing your daily pictures. I also love the self-portraits that you've had to do in art class. But, I AM your mother and I DO like the way you look, so... maybe I'm different?
You stuck with the 365 days deal a whole lot longer than I could have. I might have smashed my camera.
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