“You know, you take a lot of pictures of yourself…”

One comment I often get is “wow, you take a lot of pictures of yourself”. You know, now that I think about it, it’s awesome I get that comment. Why? Because viewers understand that I am actually photographing myself—there isn’t someone else involved in the process. While Anthony Goicolea’s photographs are elaborate, I still wonder whether he photographs himself using a timer on his camera, or if he hires someone else to click the shutter button. I also know that he occasionally uses an actor to stand in certain positions so there is actual physical contact within the photograph. What an awesome technique!

Just the simple fact that my work is done in the privacy of my studio adds a huge amount of information to the confined images and often awkward and confused feelings the viewer experiences when looking at my photographs. I sometimes wonder if my viewers’ uncontrolled bursts of laughter are caused by humor or fear. (I heard that when people get scared, they tend to laugh unexpectedly.)

It’s cool that I’m taking the current pop and web culture phenomenon of taking self-pics and deconstructing its process. While the ultimate goal of self-pics for the web is to have a hot pic for a social networking site, my ultimate goal is still unknown. And while the process of taking a self-pic for the web is simply a digital camera at the end of an extended arm, my process involves a tripod, multiple costume changes, and of course, cloning.