You Are Your Friends

I am a firm believer that you are a mixture of all of the people around you. Especially in the last couple years where I have started to open up much more to my friends, I can see where I have adopted my friends’ mindsets, humor, and even mannerisms. Coupled with the fact that I am interested in in-the-moment photography, once I heard that we were doing self-portraiture, I knew that I wanted to focus my project on my friends. After we all visited one of my friends for his birthday, I took a plethora of in-the-moment photographs of them. That being said, because the photos are spontaneous and are not staged, the hardest part of the project was trying to pick the pictures I can see myself in the most.

The first picture of the series is a mirror self portrait of me with my best friend. The photograph came out unexpectedly out of focus. Yet, despite the blur being unintentional, I was drawn to the picture. As I have struggled with my identity for years now, sometimes I feel as though I have no idea who I am or what I look like. This feeling is something that I have actively been working on overcoming but the feeling can still come back at any time. Yet, when I am feeling particularly out of it, I can always go to my friends and they will help ground me again. With my best friend still in the picture, I am reminded that they will always be there for me when I feel like I am not myself. The second picture of the series is a picture of two of my other friends stacked on top of each other on a bed. Through opening up more and being vulnerable with my friends, another way in which my friends have influenced me is the way that I have become much more comfortable with intimacy. Even when the intimacy is completely platonic, I find myself no longer hiding a big part of who I am.

 

Inspiration

Self-Portrait, 1953

Vivian Maier

 

Self-Portrait, 1945

Diane Arbus