An overveiw of Identity

I had various problems with the Identity module as I had just moved from my hometown where I had lived since birth and away from my friends and family, I felt my identity was rapidly changing and so I struggled with thinking of ideas for photographs. A lot of the ideas I did think of were based around my hometown, which is three hours away. Within Leeds, I struggled to think of suitable locations. Some of the ideas I did have, proved too hard for me to photograph. For instance, I did some research into plastic surgery, as I feel this speaks a lot about ones own identity and why they would want to change it, however, I couldn’t produce an image related to this idea.

When looking for ideas for my project I researched into various artists and their portrayal of identity.

Martin Parr
Martin Parr is an English documentary photographer born in 1952; the following two images are demonstrations of Parr’s photography and his critical view of modern society and identity



With these images Martin Parr is being very suggestive with his portrayal of identity. They have been taken with a high saturation film, which is a key element in the success of these images. Both images present a brightly coloured flag, along with the rich colours of the grass and the woman's dress in the left hand image and the dark suntan set against the sand in the right hand image, this component conveys a great deal of the photographs' subtle undertones.
Union Jack image - Denoted in this photograph is an elderly women sitting in summer on a field where an event is being held, her face is being blocked by the union jack and in the background is a typically English ice cream van.
American Flag Image - This photograph of a man wearing swimming briefs with the American flag on them holds connotations of greed, arrogance and vulgarity that are generalised to the American public.

Martin Parr is looking at national identity here and this inspired me to do a photo shoot looking into my nationality.

I took this photograph in the studio, with tungsten lighting and with a red backdrop to emphasise the England flag. I used a 15mm fish eye lens, which very slightly distorts my body. The black clothes I am wearing and how I am standing work well with the visible shadow created by placing the light to the left of me. This was the first time I had experimented with different lenses and this lead me to use various lenses throughout the year.

Terry Richardson
Our own identity, or how we are perceived is not always something we are pleased with or proud of. These two photographs by Terry Richardson experiment with the idea of rejecting ones identity.



Top -Lindsay Lohan is pictured burning an article written about her in a gossip magazine. The way her hair is and the expression on her face implies that she was unaware that she was being watched, although I think this is staged. Lindsay is being portrayed by the magazine in a way she doesn’t want to be, her own identity is betraying her.

Bottom – Here Justin Timberlake is stamping on a disco ball. He has recorded many successful pop songs and so I perceive this as a direct attack at a part of his identity. Whether he dislikes this part of his identity or whether he dislikes the fact that it is the only part of his identity portrayed by the media is uncertain.


Anton Corbijn

This is a photograph by Anton Corbijn, who was born in Holland in 1955. This is a photograph of U2 singer Bono. In this photograph and the few that follow, Corbijn looks at hiding ones identity behind different characters. He has achieved this with this image of bono by using props, such as the Mexican hat, a fake moustache, a cigarette and the palm trees in the background. The next Corbijn photographs are self-portraits. These images again play around with hiding ones identity behind another character. This time Corbijn has dressed up as well known celebrities and has used their identity to hide his own.




Hiding one’s identity behind another, fake, identity is a subject that interested me. During my English A Level we studied The Lord of the Flies in which there is a chapter where the boys in the book wear masks and find themselves able to separate their masked-selves from their real selves and do brave and often immoral things that they would normally be unable to do. Also within my Psychology A Level we looked at the significance of hiding behind fake identities and the effect that that has on someone. This personally stuck a chord with me as normally I hate having my photograph taken but in the environment of a fancy dress parties I am fine with it. Because essentially this project is a self-portrait project and because I hate my photo being taken I had a problem. After looking at Anton Corbijn’s work into hiding one’s identity I started to think about how I could hide my own. I now started to look into silhouettes.




I took this set of silhouettes in my living room against a white wall. I used a tungsten light low on its stand pointing up. Unfortunately I couldn’t get these images to be full length because the white of the walls reflected too much light and therefore the camera showed too much detail at my feet, such as the light stand etc. I digitally manipulated this image using the levels tool on Photoshop to darken my silhouette. Once happy with the image I changed the hue and saturation. Unsure which colour of light I preferred I printed three.

After experimenting with silhouettes and hiding my identity, I then did a series of photos concealing part of my identity.


With this photograph I wanted to convey the isolation I felt when moving to Leeds. Even though I live in student halls with 4 other people, I still feel very isolated away from my home, my family and my friends who all know me. Standing in the hallway with my back to the camera my head down and my hood up conveys my feelings of isolation and unhappiness. The many doors show, however, the reality of living with many people in a close space. The curved walls and doorframes caused by using a fish eye lens helps create an element of confusion to this photograph. Through experimentation this module I l have learnt to use different lenses. With this photograph I used a fish eye lens and I am very pleased with the effect it has on the final out come of this image.


Again looking into how lost I felt within the first month of coming to Leeds I created this image using the torn edges sketch effect, this time focusing only on a figure of me on a coloured background. My figure is small in the photograph to convey my feelings of insignificance. With my hood up, my head down and my hands in my pockets the photograph holds connotations of sadness and loneliness. I chose to place the figure on the bright colours of blue and yellow to demonstrate that in fact my feelings of sadness are in my head and my surrounds are bright and capable of cheering me up.
This photograph is the piece I produced over the summer. It refers to me defining myself by looking at my family and my upbringing. Denoted in the photograph is my eye and within my iris, a picture of my mum and dad. When experiencing something new, I often think of my parents and what they might think of it. This photograph shows how I look at the world through my parents’ eyes, and with my opinions that have been based around my parents’ beliefs.


I had various problems with this project as it was a self-portraiture project and I don’t like my photograph being taken. I also found it hard to assess my identity as I found it was changing. I did, however, enjoy working in a group, which I hadn’t done before and I started to experiment with lenses, which I continued to do throughout the year. When looking back at these images I realise that my skills have developed a lot throughout the year and my knowledge of lighting and Photoshop has vastly increased.