The process of this project, the assemblage and reflection of personal narrative and reflection in self portraiture, has begun and I am so very happy that this week I/we will be able draw upon the work of Wendy Luttrell.   While a guiding framework has been established in hewing to the manner and style of the portraits of James Van Der Zee, simply placing the camera in the hands of the subject offers a complete liberation of control and possibility.  So far the sense of history is carried into the portraits I have received. As you can see from the samples below, the participants have sometimes formally integrated the aesthetic into their contemporary settings,  but have still made the images unique and personal.

Amongst nature; at work; at worship, all are reflected in the photos. As Lamar has indicated in his commentary, the images do prompt the immediate questions of aesthetic and autobiography.

One subject, whose photo is not yet complete, has indicated in interviews that the impossibility of using a specific setting for her portrait (due to logistics)  at the gravesite of her mother and grandmother, informed her decision to take her photo at her alma mater, a school that while providing her an education, did not value her presence and place at the time. She wishes the photo to reflect how the institution shaped her but also enclosed her and dictated its own terms of her growth and individual history.  I look forward to seeing her finished work and sharing her reflections.

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