Friday, August 20, 2010

Self-Portrait Friday...

Lately, the self-portraits have become somewhat of an illustrated dream journal. I've been trying to embody the surreal symbolically in these photographs. Not an easy feat. Especially trying to translate last night's dream. It was a semi-lucid dream, where I was partially conscious that it was in fact a dream. It felt so real though and started off so ordinary. I woke up and got out bed. I headed to the shower like any other day. As I washed myself and drifted off into the euphoria of a hot shower, the droplets and spray of water became diamonds. The soap suds became crystalline bubbles. One would think that it would hurt being pelted with precious gemstones, but it felt like a slow and steady shower of rice or running your fingers through dry lentils. It felt absolutely luxurious, like thousands of tiny massages. I was also excited and thrilled to be ankle deep in diamonds, surely worth many, many, many millions...

Setting up this shot and taking it on my own was not the easiest. I did have some antique chandelier crystals that I thought would be a suitable substitutions for diamonds, which helped. I thought about going in the shower and taking the picture there, but the lighting in the shower is not the best, I didn't want to get my camera wet, and I didn't want the lens to fog up (nor did I want to take a cold shower). So I settled on greasing myself down with oil and spritzing myself with a water-bottle. Problem solved, right? Unfortunately the carefully placed strands of leaded glass crystal started slipping and sliding. I also don't have a tripod, so I had to jerry rig a stack of boxes to get the camera at the right height. Considering all the challenges, I think the shot turned out quite well and captured the essence of the dream perfectly.

6 comments:

Mosaic Magpie said...

I am just glad the dream didn't end with a jewel heist and shoot out at the OK corral. You would have never got those horses to stand still, while you were rigging all that up! ;)
Really it is a fantastic shot, all things considered very decadent. The beads arrived today and they are beautiful! Thank you again.
Debbie

Preserve Jewelry Studio said...

Very cool self portrait and I think the picture came out terrific. It would have been fun to see your out-take pictures. The way you describe the photo setup did make me laugh a little. I have tried taking photo shots of earrings in my lobes. When I look at the pictures and see those flaws I hide with make-up I delete those pictures faster than I took them. You are so brave to put it all out there.

Pretty Things said...

Very cool. Your dreams are as creative as you are!

(I need to ship you a tripod or something, that set up could have had an unintended hilarious ending!)

Unknown said...

You have re~created your dream really well! You are one of the most expressive people I know so very creative!

Davinia said...

I love this self portrait the best Andrew. Very sensual.

Cindy Caraway said...

My favorite so far! Perfect... :)