Cindy Sherman "The Untitled Series"

Cindy Sherman was a self portrait photographer known mostly for pushing boundaries that most people strayed away from in the 197os. Her work critiqued gender identity and expression. She used these critiques to create a body of work called the Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) where she used herself as a subject and poses in different costumes in order to portray female stereotypes found in film, television, and advertising.

My self portrait is directly inspired by the Untitled Film Series for a number of reasons. The first reason being the backstory of how and where she started shooting the photos. The series started in the artists apartment where she was able to set her own scenes and disguise herself however she wanted. I think this is very important because I can relate to being a young artist in their own space. I felt that when I was shooting my photos I was very calm and very comfortable. Another reason I was inspired by the series is because I wanted to be challenged in terms of creating something that makes you think passed what you see in the picture. In the pictures above they make me question what the subject was thinking about, or smiling at Her photos don't seem to have any real story behind them, it seems as though she's just capturing thoughtful moments. Sherman states "it's hard to describe the way I work because I work so intuitively I don't know what i'm going after until after I've done several shots." I connected to this because I generally feel that this is exactly what a photograph is - capturing thoughtful moments. In Phoebe Homan's article The Cindy Sherman Effect, she claims that by "limiting her subject matter strictly to herself, while at the same time excavating countless permutations, she inspired a generation of younger artists to explore their own identities across a range of mediums." I found this to be true. Dressing up and putting on makeup makes you realize you can literally be anyone you want to be. 

I chose this photo because of its simplicity. Without the special effects of photoshop this photo is still amazing to me. It makes me question so many things about it and I think that's what a good photo should do. For my photo I chose to keep it simple as well. I wanted to create the same mood as Sherman did in her photo. 

Jocelyn Rodriguez "The Remake"