self portrait pt 2    

revealing my self without being visible   

creating a self portrait doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be clearly visible within the frame.... 

in this vertical triptych i am actually present, but indiscernible. i am leaning over a bridge railing with my camera, trying to capture a mirror-image of myself in the water, but the movement of the ripples distorts and transforms my reflection, breaking it up in an endless stream of multicolored particles, floating away on the surface.
if you look closely you might recognize bits of my face and hands and the lens of my camera.

some people say that any picture you take is in fact a self portrait, because by choosing your subject, arranging objects within the frame, deciding on camera settings etc. you already reveal something about yourself. 

by giving this image the title: self portrait, i actually invite the viewer to search for clues about my identity. it is up to the viewer to interpret the visual information conveyed by  the image. does the graffiti in the back of the shed mean that i am gay, or exactly the opposite, that i hate gays? does the chaos at the bottom of the shed reflect my chaotic personality? or do i feel used up, discarded and broken like the dirty remains of moped and wheelbarrow on the floor? does this image reveal how i feel about myself or how i feel about the world in general, where people keep abusing eachother with words?