The Obsessions & Collections Photography Experience™ - Day Three

[jackshoegazer]

Myself

As you may have noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with self-portraits.  I have been accused of vanity, which is not it at all.  Vanity is excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc.  I do not take pride in that sense in my appearance.  In fact, I grew up as "the ugly kid" that no one liked.  In my adult life, I have come to realize that I am in fact not always "the ugly kid" but that I can be handsome at times.  This is most evidenced in my HotorNot scores, which when I post a "good" picture, I score eight to nine, and when I post "bad" pictures, I get fours to fives.  Thus, I am concerned about my appearance because I know that a) it really is the first thing people judge you by and b) I am the type of person who has a very thin line between being a 4 and a 9.  Couple this with the fact that there were very few pictures taken of my when I was young and most of the ones that were taken were destroyed when my biological mother's apartment burned down.  This lack of proof of my existence, coupled with a perpetual self-awareness of my appearance, leads me to document myself regularly in photographic form.  And I got a new haircut today.

Comments

[zas.livejournal.com]

I think I've ended up slightly obsessed with taking pictures of myself . . . And I really think it comes down to weight insecurities (I used to be overweight when I was younger- And though now I'm at a healthy weight it feels IMPOSSIBLE to really view myself as being at an attractive weight. :P) I dunno, self-portraits are weird. Because you look at artists who were KNOWN for self-portraits and people don't really consider them as vain. Paintings seem to get a nicer rep than photography, even though your spending more hours MEMORIZING all the details of your face, ha. :P

That said . . . I was rereading these silly webcomics I love at abe_kroenen and I was checking out the comments to one episode and someone had linked to your icon community there, ha ha hah! The coincidence amused me. The internet is a small world after all, apparently. :)

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same boat right now. Ever since I've been told by people that I'm attractive, I've been kind of reveling in it. I haven't been called vain, but I AM self-conscious about it even though I'm really going through a healing process. I didn't even think I was attractive until the past two or three years, despite being told otherwise occasionally by people.

In other words: I get what you're saying. :)

[katachthonios.livejournal.com]

I'm going to echo the other comments. I started doing the self-portrait thing because I was the most available model to use. After a while I realized that whole 'ugly duckling' thing was wearing off, and you-know-what, fuck what others said about me, 'cause I have all these pictures that could demonstrate otherwise.

Nice haircut.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Exactly and thanks!

[katachthonios.livejournal.com]

I want to helm a reality makeover show that doesn't actually make over the people, but instills enough self-confidence that they feel happy just the way they are.

I'm debating the close-of-episode sequence of beating male and female models with baseball bats.