Lee Friedlander was born on July 14th 1934, and studied at the Art Center College of Design located in Pasadena, California. After finishing school Lee explored with his photographs for the next thirty years, and his work varied thoroughly. He started by photographing musicians for their covers and went on to take nude photographs of Madonna. During his career, he also published a couple of books, including a book on self portraits.
In his self-portrait book, Lee Friedlander, he has a quote that i find very interesting about what he feels about a self-portrait, and a face. Quoting him, he says "TO KNOW ONE'S OWN STATE IS NOT A SIMPLE MATTER. ONE CANNOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT ONE'S OWN FACE WITH ONES OWN EYES, FOR EXAMPLE. ONE HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO LOOK AT ONE'S REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR. THROUGH EXPERIENCE, WE WILL COME TO BELIEVE THAT THE IMAGE IS CORRECT, BUT THAT IS ALL .
I interpret this as meaning how we can never really see our own face. We have to use other tools that are outside of our human anatomy to visualize what we might look like. His photographs in his book also resemble his work. The examples above show similarities in my own work. My previous work resembles the first photograph, only a shadow of the man, whereas the second reminds me of the work i am constructing now. With this second photograph, it reminds me of my own blending and opposing identities in concept. He has quite a few more of these portraits of identity, which i am continually looking at.
http://graememitchell.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/friedlander_nyc_1966.jpg
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2008/06/27/20080627_california_33.jpg
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