Social media accounts that are filled to overflowing with selfies can be a bit intense at times. Its been something, that with having low self esteem and not feeling very positive about self image, that I have struggled to partake in myself.
Photographs in my camera reel have a varied mix of buildings, landscapes, plants and interiors as well as the odd quirky image and saved meme, but aside a few snaps of friends and family at gatherings, have often lacked selfies. I wonder what this says about me? of indeed what people would perceive of me through the images that I make and don’t make?
I remember seeing a photo a friend posted a number of years back, certainly pre pandemic circa 2016, the photo was of their shadow with two daisy flowers placed where eyes would be. The image amused me and on a subsequent sunny day I made an attempt at making a similar image, but alas no daisies were to hand. I took the photo anyway and posted it, my first ‘Shadow Selfie’. It somehow felt like I was a part of the masses in posting
a selfie, yet my image and identity was not fully revealed and I was able to maintain an air of mystery on my social media account as to who I actually was.
I went on to take and post more of these images online, I started looking at them as a creative collection of artist self portraits. The images started to chart my whereabouts as well as subtle changes in appearance and also documented the weather to a point. All while my identity was being partially obscured in the safety of the shadows.
I enjoyed that these shadows, or silhouettes also had a creative history of their own, a modern day take on Victorian ‘shades’ which were often images of a person in profile. The images I was making were a face on rather than profile image, making reference to the ‘blank profile’ images that social media have in stock before ‘profile photos/head shots’ are added to personal profile pages.
With posting more of these images I started to play around a little, sometimes including bags, tools, poses and even included the shadows of people walking with me while out for the day. I started drawing around shadows in sand while on the beach while making other transitory work in coastal locations, to further explore outline as an image.
More recently (July 2025) I have been looking at melding the world of the Victorians with the digital age, creating a series of digital images entitled ‘Shade. This is undoubtedly a theme which will be explored and thread its way through my creative output for a number of years ahead.
Portiphillio 