‘Peter’, my brother would say to me.  ‘There’s no video camera in the corner of the room documenting your life”’

 

A key to understanding the reasons, the rationale, and the excuses I might give to the question of ‘why’ I take pictures.

 

The very first time I showed an envelope of photos to my late father, he commented that the best photo is the one that like a straight line – connects two points in the shortest possible distance.  20 years later, as I write these words, I’m still searching for a straightedge.

 

I never photographed myself as a study of myself, but since I photograph where I am – on occasion, I have become part of my own environment.

 

In photography, the image can become – like a chicken and the egg – something eternal, but the line between reality, and the image of reality, are often clouded by memory.

 

A self-portrait by an artist is an obligation by the artist to define himself.  If the journey that has defined the artist is non-linear, then the self portrait will never appear as a rubber stamp.  The portrait is momentary, and with time it will vary.

 

The constant absorption with the

‘self’ is so alienating, I can only

wonder who has the time to put

oneself ‘out there’ for public consump-

tion.  Not that I hold the artist who

creates self-portraiture with disdain;

after all ‘art’ is driven by artists; it’s the

exclusive, single-mindedness of injec-

ting one’s self into everything that

bores me, and puts the 'dis' in front of the

interest.

​

These individual Polaroid photos com-

prise a composite illustration of some

of the many lighting setups tested by

myself, on myself – for lack of an avail-

able assistant to put up with me- in ad-

vance of the subject arriving to the studio.

​