Introspective Identity

"I am working to understand my voice within this world. Photography is an extension of that exploration."  - Eri Hart Jr

Often the most memorable pictures are those of people. Portrait photography has the power to be engaging, emotional, intimate and informative, as well as be a powerful tool for self discovery. Portraits are the ultimate story-telling device. They allow for us to study the human form in great detail. To be able to admire the most intimate details of a person; their beauty, their imperfections.

We are surrounded everywhere nowadays with peoples pictures, from social media to the numerous photos we take on our phones, however Portrait photography is on a different level entirely.

INTROSPECTIVE: characterized by examination of one's own thoughts and feelings.  - dictionary.com

IDENTITY: condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is; the qualities, beliefs, etc., that distinguish or identify a person or thing: a case of mistaken identity; a male gender identity; immigrants with strong ethnic identities. ... the state or fact of being the same one as described. - dictionary.com

These photos are a sequence of 10 A2 mountboard photographic prints, selected on aesthetic from a shoot collection of 68. Like my previous exhibition pieces the subject and observed object was myself as the artist. Building off of the idea of where do we draw the line between artist and art?

These photos are considered by general standards "self-portraits" because they are of the artist, yet with these photos I have contextually built one layer extra to define this definition as these portraits are not taken with an extra person behind the lens, these are taken with a remote release button; that allows the photographer to capture away from the camera. These particular sequence of photos was taken through the Canon Wifi extension app that allows the camera to connect to a separate device and be controlled through the app as the release switch). 

Questions asked about these pieces and formed from these pieces: Is the artist the artwork? or is the artwork the artist? Society's human image? Identity is just a copy of human narcissism? Human identity or Human narcissism. Are they looking to or looking from? Is this person judging you? Are they looking for sympathy? Relationship between the subject and the context? Disembodied heads? With the way its been staged for exhibiting you are being told what to look at and what not to look at.