An Experiment in Self-Portraiture

evening blur
So, I’m starting an experiment over here.

When I sat down with my journal and brainstormed ways to make action on my ‘Be Yourself’ Business Plan (and life plan), an idea that came up really surprised me.  It was to do some fashion blogging.  Oh my.

It makes sense though.

  • It can involve self-portraiture
  • I love clothing and style (especially style that invites you to ‘be yourself’)
  • I adore fashion blogs and OOTD (outfit of the day posts) particularly from body positive blogs or fatshionistas.

So I thought, why not experiment with it?

The experiment for me is playing around with the purpose of taking self-portraits.  In my courses I really try to highlight that it is an artistic act, that we can be our own model, be in control, be in charge of the way we see ourselves in our images.

In reading fashion blogs (or at least the ones that I read which are centred around body-positivity ie. loving and celebrating your body and all bodies…not just thin or stereotypically beautiful bodies) I see the same thing….people being themselves, taking control of the way they see themselves, getting dressed in something that makes them feel fabulous.

I see it as a way for us to see ourselves with kindness, to feel empowered, to be ourselves!

I don’t feel like either type of self-portraiture, whether it is to share our love of fashion or to create something for arts sake,  is really that different.

Somehow I feel like if we add ‘fashion’ into the mix, those ideas that self-portraiture is vain comes up again.  Is it more worthy to do it for arts sake or creativities sake than to do it to make ourselves feel empowered in how we get dressed in our every day life and express ourselves through our clothing?

So this is where the experiment comes in.

I want to try it out, see if it invites me to dress a little sharper, feel even better in my skin?

I want to see if it feels different than self-portraiture for arts sake and see if I learn anything new about that kind of self-portraiture?  I also feel like fashion OOTD blogging is really outside of the blogging community that I’ve been reading or who I feel like my audience is…so I hope you’ll come along with me as I try out this experiment in having a new genre of content on the blog too.

I also want to see if it invites me to take self-portraits in a different way technically.

Remember that one line on my list?  Burst outta the f-ckin’ box?  I think this counts as that so I’m going to go for it!

So, let the adventure begin!