Nice to Meet You
So today in photography we had our Light Project due, so as usual on due dates, we posted our minimum of four prints on the perferorated wall and critique them for the full three hours. This is the first time, or at least one of the first times, where I'm not dreading the critique; usually I rush to do these photo projects the day before and come out with pretty embarassing and petty prints that I'm not satisfied with at all. This time, though, while I did shoot the entire project the day before, I actually had no major complications in processing and developing my film and the actual pictures themselves turned out pretty decent! I went with Suzy to a bunch of bars (the Keg, 1800, etc) to take a bunch of shots of interesting lighting while she did some NNN story so it was a nice change of atmosphere.

Anyways, it turns out that in each photo project, I do a lot of self-portraits and usually pick at least one of them for display as one of my final prints. This project was no different, and I picked this shot I did (as you can see on the left) of me holding a lighter in the darkroom downstairs and holding the shutter at Bulb for a few seconds. My eyes are wide and my face is almost being devoured by the white light of the lighter. Well, Pam (the prof) asks me what it's about, I tell her the story, and she slips a "hmm" and pauses reflecting on the picture.
"It's curious Miguel, all your self-portraits have this quality to them... you've displayed a self-portrait every project?"
"I think so."
"I mean, this picture, and all your self-portraits all connect with each other and show this...other side of you-- they look like completely different people."
Huh? "I mean like your other selfportraits you did for the last assignment, your expression on each of them is this... "zonked" out expression and show this.."wildness" that....I don't know I mean-"
At this point the class echoes this quiet murmur of acknowledgement and agreement, completely following on Pam's thought.
"I don't know you seem like this...," she looks at me and puts her hand out,"quiet, conservative person... I mean you don't talk much in class, but through these pictures it seems like you're letting out this completely outside quality of you that... I don't know if you're giving us tiny glimpses of your life outside of class! But these self-portraits are very curious and interesting... they don't seem like you at all."

The self-portraits I've displayed in class before are all on the left. I didn't know how to feel about this... I wasn't sure if I should be offended? Or take it as a compliment of my photos? Or what? This incident completely proves what I've been thinking about and an earlier post I wrote on Xanga, which follows here:
"So I have determined after last night that I must bring a notebook with me at all times, like one of those little ones that you can fit in your pocket or something. I realize this is incredibly "hipster" and immediately labels you as "arty" but whatever, I'm beginning to realize that I may look like a completely different person to everybody I know- preconceptions and perspectives can be so wildly different than our own viewpoint that it's mindboggling. I mean, have you ever thought about that? I know how I see the world, and you know, it is wildly different than it was a year ago, and even more so two years ago. But can you imagine how other people see it? You can be a completely different person in another person's eye, almost unrecognizable from your own standpoint I would say. Kind of a scary/important thought that's been pressing on my mind, but anyways..."

Isn't that scary? If you were to put how you view yourself side by side with how someone else sees you, they could almost be unrecognizable to each other. There's so much power in perspective and perception. In my photography class, I don't really know anybody... there's this girl that was in my drawing class last quarter that I'm friendly with and there's Anthony who, even living with him last year in the dorm, I've only begun to start talking to. Those conversations are limited, but even they probably have different perspective on me. In that drawing class I had with Cara, I mainly talked the entire time with Pedro and was kind of a blabbermouth-- very social. And Anthony, just by living in the dorm and now the same floor with me, has certain perceptions of me and what I do outside of class. In photography, I barely talk at all... I'm probably the youngest in the class and there are all these uberhip and trendy chicas who look like they just walked out of a Belmont thrift store display.
So, I'm posting these pictures on this site to see what y'all think about them. Do I look pyscho/zonked/arty/aloof in these photos? What are your impressions, if any at all, of these self-portraits? Why is this bothering me so much? Ah, geez.