Dylan's personal photography

Scars

For the personal photography and body photographic assignment I decided to highlight one of the human body’s amazing features, its ability to heal itself from severe injury. After suffering several deep gashes to my face after an unfortunate fall, I took several photographs and compiled them into one seamless image. In the first image, I used an old photograph of myself before I had a scar, for the second I used a photo I took the day the cut took place, the next photograph in the series was the day after the injury occurred. And finally the last photograph is my head with the faint outline of a healed scar, detailing the progression and the healing power of the human body. I adopted this idea from Nan Golden’s self portraits of her facial injuries and put a different, positive spin on it. Another series of photos that influenced my photographs was the Composite Portraits by Superimposition of Photos Seeking a Generic Criminal. These close up shots of a mans face shows the imperfections of each one, therefore making them an individual amongst a group. The First and Second Beauty Composites displayed the flawless beauty of those women; my photographic series took a different approach, the human face when it is flawed and not perfect. I used Barbra Kruger’s concept of text in her photographs to add a series of words to mine.   The aspect of identity was the most relevant to my series of photographs; the scars on my face represent individuality and personal transformation.  The middle photographs use the photographic concept of grotesque imagery, blood is not a welcome sight to many people in a photograph and is viewed as unpleasant, but will catch the viewer’s attention and invoke thought into the photograph due to the rarity of it. Also, a viewer might have some pity due to the fact of personal injury. The idea of using a grotesque image appealed to me because of its shock value to the viewer and attention capturing aspects of an open wound. This aspect interested me because of its originality, pictures of people’s faces pre, during, and post scar are quite unusual.