Self Portrait number two

Well one of the self portraits I posted was of my three prize posessions. The running shoes are very important to me because the represent a huge part of who I am. I am an athlete and I spend a very large portion of my life in running sneakers. I also took a picture with my giant banana, it was hard not to smile for this one because giant bananas are silly. This may seem very strange to most people but the banana has been with me since my freshman year of high school. I moved from my hometown to a town just outside of Chicago Illinois that year. It was a huge adjustment for me and it took a long time to make friends and to be able to express myself. It was there that I really was able to find myself and discover the thinigs that mattered most to me. The banana was given to me by a girl that became my best friend there. To me it symbolizes the changes I have been through. That move gave me confidence in my person and I will always be grateful for that. Plus the banana makes a great pillow on road trips...haha
The last image is of myself in my leather jacket. I think this is a symbolic picture because it expresses my love of fashion and excitement. I love this jacket, not because it is practical but because it is outrageous. Sometimes I like to dress up, and by that I mean I basically wear a costume. Not like halloween or anything I just find really random or outrageous combinations of clothing and wear them to normal occasions. I feel that the jacket represents this outgoing side of my personality.
So to tie these images together: I began running in Illinois and have been ever since ( the orange and black were our school colors). It was there that I received the banana as a gift as well as learned to be my own person and to embrace my quirkiness. My quirkiness is often expressed in my clothing, such as the jacket.


Ok so now for the other self portrait. This was my original idea but I couldnt get my picture programs to work properly. Needless to say I did alot more work that I needed to.
I relaly wanted to insert myself into the 1920s because I felt it was an era of change for young middle class women. At this time they began wearing shorter skirts, smoking and even drinking in public. Womens rights were on the move and these young women were at the edge. They cut their hair and went out at night. They introduced a new kind of woman.

I used the different images for several reasons. The stage girls seemed to capture the theatrics of the time. These young women were going above and beyond, they were breaking free. Much of this has since been portrayed on the stage in theatre productions such as the musical Chicago. These stage girls seemed to represent the brash new breed of women.

The girls on the street seemed to be a much more average set of young women. They have chic hats and short skirts and wave coquettishly at the camera. I think that this image is a classic image of the time and really captures the movement.

The final image is not truly inserted into another photo. I felt that many times these women were just dressed up for show, they wanted the spotlight and that was what I wanted to capture here. Dressed to the max and playing for the camera.

I think that over all I did a good job in cpaturing hte ime period and the images that represent it. It was relaly hard to digitally photoshop the images and I think I would have been able to do a better job with different programs. But working with what I had ( and having my computer crash in the middle) I thought this project runed out quite well.