Jin's Selfportrait

My philosophical idea is what you see is what you get. A guy is happy because in his eyes, the world is happy. A sad guy is sad because he can’t see the happiness of the world. In my self-portrait, there is a black frame, which is part of my glasses: it represents the vision. Behind it, there are tons of leaves, for the happy guys, they can see the life beyond the leaves, they can see the great of the Mother Nature, but for the sad guys, they would only see those as bunch of boring leaves. My self-portrait is located in the middle, with a face full of hope. I believe there is always hope, as long as you can see the positive side of the world. The self-portrait is also looking through the glasses, which is telling my audience you can see life through your vision. I believe it is also a way to connect with my audience. On the left side, there is a sailing boat, a sailing boat is always a sign of hope. I also deliver the belief of starting over: it’s never too late! It’s like a scale: through your vision, on the right side, if you can see the happiness of life, you have a happy life, if you don’t, on the left side, then, start over, review yourself, find the happiness of life, find the beauty of life, there is always hope.

I first took the picture of myself as a hopeful person, then I used Photoshop to erase the background so that the picture of the leaves will be displayed clearly without interruption by the background since I took the self picture in my own bedroom. The leaves picture is taken by using the camera placed behind my glasses, so that the leaves displayed behind the lens would be clear, and the rest will be unclear: it gives people a feeling of unsure. I used the Photoshop to adjust its opacity, so the self-portrait would display. I took the picture of the sailboat from the Internet, and photoshoped it without the background, so the sailboat alone. I also adjusted its opacity too. I flattened the whole 3 layers and turned them into black and white.