Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Pictures of You, Pictures of Me

(George Tooker, Self-Portrait, 1947; unknown MySpace picture)

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I used to take a lot of self-pics. As soon as I got my hands on my first digital camera (circa 1999 - cost $150 and was 1.5 megapixels), I was snapping pictures of myself on a weekly basis.

A lot of my self-pics can be chalked up to body image issues that come tucked inside your first box of Tampax Slenders. Only instead of stuffing my bra in front of my mirror, asking "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret," or furiously stabbing my autograph hound, I could put on a shitload of make-up and post to my LiveJournal! "Got a new dress," I'd coyly write. Yeah right, bitch - these are clearly the product of two hours worth of careful staging.

The other night, prior to applying my acne cream (still young after all these years!), I was thinking about how I haven't taken a self-pic - a serious self-pic - in a while. Maybe it's because I don't think I am as cute as I did when I was 16, but hey! some of the best pictures I have of myself, I took my.self. No one knows your face better than you, right?

(Cindy Sherman - queen of "don't call them self-portraits because they're not actually me" self-portraits)

Then I was thinking how cool it would be if self-portraits could be a Spinecracker project. So here's your mission, if you choose to accept: take some legitimate self pics. No PhotoBooth, no camera in the mirror or over your head, just good self pics. Pretend you met someone FINE in your favorite AOL chat room, and you're adding an attachment. Or, just take a cool picture.