Lee Friendlander's self portrait was originally published by himself in 1970.
This version includes an afterword by John Szarkowski.
Soon his surrogate self was behaving with a mindlessness of its own, "sometimes appearing" this is because his reflection often appeared in photographs
-leading photographer for over 4decades
-2 dozen books of his own
-
-----------------------------------------------
"These self portraits span a period of six years and were not done as a specific preoccupation, but rather, they happened as a peripheral extension of my work. They began as straight portraits but soon I was finding myself at times in the landscape of my photography."
(breaking rules of photography)
- shadow in the shot
- mirror shot, showing the camera
- reflection in windows
-
(interesting looking through these photo's how some of my own self portraits follow the same style, so do all photographic pursuits follow this kind of evolution?)
-----------------------------------------------
The Friedlander Self - afterword by John Szarkowski
benefit of the self as subject matter - easy accessibility, omnipresent and free
"the obvious disadvantage of the self as subject is the fact that it inevitably raises the issue of conflict of interest. When the artist is also the subject, wearing two hats at once, is he (she) first of all the servant of historic and artistic justice, or the agent of self-advancement."
Note - painters too have this 'self portrait' however they obviously have a longer time to create their work and subvert it. It's suggested that they paint themselves with more reverence than their subject counterpart.
"we will note that the painters in them -depicted by themselves- are invariably more attractive, sympathetic, intelligent, and sensitive than the non-painters, even though it was the non-painters who were paying for the whole enterprise.
Albrecht Durer established this tradition, self portraits almost like Jesus Christ. Even Van Gogh "paints himself as an exemplary -as a radiant- fool"
Rembrandt + Picasso may be championed by some as master of the self-portrait
the line of development is similar, both "gradually adopt a remarkably impersonal attitude toward their own persons."
Perhaps clearer and more dramatic in Rembrandt's case age30, persona clearly very important but not very interesting 30 years later getting blander. The painter less interested in things that made him special in his youth.
Only a dunce or a knave would compare work of a great dead painter to any photographers work.... just stating their "similarity in their attitudes, which allows them to look at their selves with such remarkable and rare disinterest."
"The best self-portraits of D.O Hill, Oscar Rejkander, Edward Steichen, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Edward Curtis, Edward Weston, Ilse Bing, Andre Kertesz, Berenice Abbott, Jerry Uelsmann, and others, tend to resemble in aim if not in quality the self-portraits of the young Rembrandt."
Friedlanders are a new personae "constructed out of the very process of photography. In this sense they might be profitably compared to the fictional self-portraits of Cindy Sherman, which are similar in the sense that both photographers are interested in the exploration of roles, but dissimilar in the sense that for Sherman the roles would appear to be designed in the mind, like advertisements, and then realised by the means of photography, whereas for Friedlander one cannot properly think of the idea in the absence of, or distinct from, the photograph in which it is embedded."
"It has surely been pointed out that the fisherman, no matter how carefully he studies its deeps and shallows, never fishes the same river twice."
 | ||
| New York City 1966 |
 | ||
| Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts 1968 |
My opinion:I really like this evolution and process he has discovered through his journey over 6 years, my own is just under 1 year and a half in the making so I wonder how mine may have evolved after that point...
To research: Painters self portraits, Albrecht Durer, Vincent Van Gogh (interesting idea because they CAN subvert their own appearance and not be subject to the truth the camera supposedly bestows upon them but wim to their own interpretation)
Cindy Sherman fictional self-portraits
Published by the museum of modern art, new york
ISBN - 0-87070-338-2
2005? edition
Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk
Posts
