Self Portrait Assignment

Duane Michals

            Duane Michals was brought up in probably every photography class I had at Lycoming. Which is understandable due to his famous self portrait photographs. When I was researching his work, I realized I saw most of his work without realizing it was Duane Michaels. His self portraits are unique and seems like there is a meaning behind them due to what is being captured and with his titles of his photographs. For example, the above image has the title "Self Portrait As I Were Dead", which brings a lot of awareness to the photo due to the captivating title. By critiquing his work, I can explain what I feel when looking at his image and what he can do differently to make this photo pop out more.
            I love how Duane Michaels uses his ideas of "self portraits" due to him being in the photograph twice. My guess he uses double exposure, so that he can be displayed as two people. For instance, he captures the photograph with him leaning against the wall and then he moves laying on the bed to where he looks dead. I like this concept of his double exposure since we normally just see one person in their self portraits, we get to see two of Duane Michals. I find that really unique about his work how he takes advantage of the double exposure method. However, I would have liked to see his "dead body" to be translucent instead of being opaque. The sheets are translucent but not his actual body. If he would change that detail, it would really see the dead body as being a ghost or a "dream". Maybe that's me on being picky or too critical, but I think that would look pleasing to the eye seeing your ghost like self. Other than that miner critique, I don't see anything I would really change about Michals's photograph. I love his uniqueness and creativity with his work. His creative side really comes out with his titles he uses for his work. The above image titles, "Self Portrait As I Were Dead", really gives a sense of what to look at and how to perceive his photograph. It also gives us an eerie feeling as we're looking at a person looking at their own dead body. Titles stand out when it really expresses what we're suppose to look at, and I think Michals did an excellent job on perceiving that to the viewer. 

            Duane Michals's work stood out to me more than the other self portrait photographers, due to his uniqueness of how he captures double himself using the double exposure method. I find that fascinating that he takes it a step forward and doesn't traditionally use just one of himself. I also like how he really draws the viewer in on what we are suppose to look at by the way he phrases his titles. It gives us a creepy feeling when we are intended to see him looking at his own dead body. Even though I only had one critique about his image, it's also something I think that would enhance his image and make it look more realistic in a sense. Duane Michals is probably one of my favorite self portrait photographers due to him stepping out of the box and being different than other photographers.