After seeing all of the perfect photos nowadays teenagers, like me, post on Facebook, I realize that everyone has become very self-conscious. We are always worried about how we look in front of our friends and often try to choose the best possible photo of ourselves after taking many poses. I decided to just be myself and base my concentration on answering the question, “Do I really look that way?”.  These self-portraits are focused on telling a story and exploring how I really look when I am unguarded and acting normal.

 I started my portraits by wanting to know what I look like doing my hobbies. I played with perspective, such as using bird’s eye view while swimming (#1) and while playing basketball (#6).  Then, I tried worm’s eye view while filming (#9).  I decided that I had to put more of my personality and emotions into my work to really explore how I look. For example, #4 shows frustration when I picked up a pencil, #5 shows apprehension and in #12 I tried to show my playful side by peeking out the window during break time. Then, I decided to lower my self-consciousness more and did portraits of my daily routine that I would normally never let anyone see and brushed my teeth (#7), ate with my mouth open (#10) and exposed my classroom habits (#11). Each of these tells a normal story, but they are not pictures you would ever find on Facebook. As I progressed through my Concentration, my artistic skills and expression improved. The first few artworks were low contrast, but as I progressed, I started adding really dark areas as seen in #10.  Overall, I think I improved my skills and what I wanted to express. I may not find my portraits appeasing because of the expressions on my face, but at least now I know how I look.

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