Selfie Contest #2!Last spring we had a very successful selfie contest. Now it's fall, we thought it was time to bring it back. Our second Selfie Contest has the deadline of Monday, November 6. The top five winners will receive a prize of a $10 Amazon gift certificate, and will be published in a future issue of Stone Soup. As all of you know, a "selfie" is self-portrait. It is you telling a story about yourself through a photograph. There is a long tradition of artists making portraits of themselves in drawing, in photography, and in painting--the wonderful self-portrait below, painted by Goya in around 1785, could be seen as an early version of a full-body selfie. The mirrors Goya needed to pull off his self-portrait are out of sight, while one of the winners of our spring contest, pictured above, used mirrors as an integral part of her composition, but both of them show us the medium they used to make the work: Goya his paints and easel, and Sophia Lee Bartolini her camera phone and bathroom cabinet mirrors. The ability to take a photograph of yourself while holding a camera that at the same time enables you to see what you are doing is entirely new. You are the pioneers. In one or two hundred years people looking back at photography from this period and will see these kinds of selfies as an exciting new art form. There is room for serious portraits in this contest and we definitely want to see a few photographs in which you compose yourself and look into the camera. But there is plenty of room to be playful too, if that's who you are. There is a long tradition of artists dressing up in costume before making their self-portraits, and costumes are a great way to say something about yourself. Make a portrait of yourself doing something you love, or are good at; your costume could be a uniform or an outfit for a special activity (like Goya's hat with candles that helped him see what he was doing as the light of the day dimmed). You can also be dramatic. Photograph yourself in profile. Get motion into your picture. Surprise yourself--and surprise us. As with every artistic endeavor I think you will find that taking risks will pay off! You are permitted to up load up to three images. You can make them each completely different from each other or you can send in three images that are linked in some way. Send in your entries here. Please submit in the Artwork category, and include 'Selfie Contest, Fall 2017' in your title. |
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