Self portrait Franzi

I was creating this image with Photoshop. I took several pictures and then decided for two of them, which I laid over each other and I made them in a black and white contrast so I could produce another self-portrait in the dark room. In the dark room, I put the printed copy of my negative over a white light sensitive paper and dispensed light on it for 10 seconds. As a test, I tried it between 5 and 15 seconds and 10 was the best. Just for fun, I did another test photogram for 13 seconds, but it was too dark so I decided for the 10 seconds photogram.

In my self-portrait I took two pictures of myself, as aforementioned and laid them over each other. In the first picture I cover my eyes with my hands. The second picture is myself screaming and my eyes are open. In this self-portrait I wanted to describe how I feel in the inside. Most of the time I am calm, I am in my mind, meaning I know exactly what I am doing, I dream a lot and I am peacefully rested. But then on the other side, I can be very aggressive, I get annoyed easily, I get bored easily, I need change. Sometimes the frustration with the expectations of society is just too much. Sometimes I can’t stay rested peacefully, some days I break. Sometimes I have to scream, I have to get rid of all of the bad emotions I have to tell the world that I am not fine, that I am sad, that I cannot live anymore. I am trying to hide this side of me with my hands; I am trying to cover who I really am. Only a few people know the true me. But how am I supposed to show my true self when I don’t even know who I am? The sudden shift of frustration and happiness confuses me every time. I don’t know what I want in my life, I don’t know who I can trust, I don’t know where I belong. And this frustration, the silent scream, that I am trying to cover makes me someone I don’t even know yet and I get scared of that person too.

The black and white photogram brought out the seriousness and the twisted personality I have and I described in the paragraph above.

As already aforementioned I took pictures of myself in the darkness and there was one flood light that I was trying to focus directly on my heart, because I am trying to describe my true self, but still lights up my face. It was really hard to focus the light, because we weren’t able to move the light source, so I had to kneel down, which I didn’t plan when I first thought about my project. Overall I am very satisfied with my self-portrait, because it describes my true self and the process was thoughtfully planned and the metaphors fit the photogram.