Initially I was quite nervous to share my work with others because I felt like it was very personal and I am that kind of person who doesn’t feel comfortable putting myself out there straight away, especially with people I don’t know very well. However, quickly I grew more relaxed and stopped worrying about what people thought, because really it felt like they were interested in me and I was interested in finding out about them as well.

Through the different mediums contained in my ‘self portrait’ I tried to represent myself not in a literal form (e.g. this is my house) but by using objects and places which represent things I believe in and my personality. I found most other people represented themselves more literally showing their families, pets and bedrooms which was interesting to see the different ways in which people see themselves and how this reflects who they really are.

At first glance you do not really get the sense of who someone is; all of these things were really just files on a computer which don’t really represent anyone as they could mean anything. However, when going through the people’s blogs with them they begin explaining what the pictures mean to them and how they represent themselves; it is really these stories they begin telling where you get the true sense of who someone is and it is very interesting to see how different everyone actually is and likes to represent themselves.

I feel like it was quite difficult to give feedback on something so personal because you can’t tell someone ‘this didn’t work in your self portrait, you’re doing your life wrong’. Saying that to someone just doesn’t really make sense because people know themselves better than anyone else so their self portrait is basically just who they are and you can’t really make judgement on that, which is why I think this first assignment was not being graded.