4 photos and an hour of light before the sun set too deep to see
Thats me
This shoot is brought to you by an empty coffee cup and dimming sunlight on a cold overcast September evening. This shoot was simple and void of any preconceived thoughts or emotions; with camp set up for the evening, I looked across my small nook on this ski hill, and noticed a well lit scene present itself to me, so I listened and began my process promptly.
I find my photos tend to feel lonely, cold, and other things I’m sure, and I love it. Happiness is lovely, however, I find Happiness is best displayed in genuine candid photos of good quality moments experienced in life. Loneliness however, can be displayed well without facial expressions, and with a single person. Not to say I’m lonely, but there’s clearly something lingering in the back of my mind if this style is what I like to explore.
That’s also me
I also just love the human body; the shapes they create, the muscles that make them complete, the softness of their skin and the expressions their faces can create from any emotion felt. I like how we can move and distort our figures to create things both normal and abnormal, and I love love love the self-love I cultivate for myself through these self portraits.
In-fact I’d say this all started way back in my high school years when a very good friend of mine, Molly, suggested I sit in front of a mirror and draw myself nude. That for her, it provided a sense of self-love she hadn’t quite found for herself before that experience. Being a budding photographer at the time, I began a journey of nude self-portraits from this suggestion, inspired both by that moment, and my biggest inspiration -Francesca Woodman. It did take a couple years to completely strip naked in front of my lens, but the ball had been pushed and everything set in motion. You can find the first nude photo of me in the “2019-2020” folder within my work page; I’m standing in between a couple large oak trees with some long frizzy hair (perhaps I’ll do a throwback blog post and describe that specific period of time someday soon).
Can you believe it? That’s me too
The second photo in this post was intended on being the main photo of this shoot, and perhaps it still is, however, I ended up enjoying the first photo considerably more. I think, its because of the definition in each muscle making my set of bones move around, but I also think it brings a bit more motion to the photo, motion I wasn’t looking for, but happily found and accepted in this off shot. You see, there are two principles I found in a book on composition by Andreas Feininger that I carry with me every time I pick up my camera. The first being: “Rarely if ever is the first view the most effective one.” The second: ”-they shoot roll after roll of film, not because they hope, like many amateurs, that if only they take a sufficiently large number of pictures, according to the laws of chance at least some should “turn out alright,” But because they realize that the picture they passed up as not interesting enough may subsequently prove to have been the most important shot-”.
When I do self portrait shoots like this, I tend to keep the shutter going after my first perceived pose is made, and sometimes, like with this collection, one of those shots becomes the one I enjoy most. I use a remote shutter and just keep clicking, expecting to find some gold in the silt that is my camera roll.
And the final photo of, you guessed it, me :)
What I also enjoy doing in each self shoot, is take a photo of myself as I am, clothed, to document what I looked like in this period of my life; the clothes I wear, the smile I have on my face, the color of my mustache -any and everything that makes up Connell E Gapinski. One day I’m going to be old and curious of how attractive I was in my youth, so here we are, taking photos and ensuring I preserve that.
Well, here’s the end of this post. Thank you for reading this far and hopefully enjoying the photos I’ve created. For the next post, I’ll have some photos. “What of?” you might be wondering, who knows :) They’ll be lovely though, I’m sure of it.
See you later alligator
