I would never be in front of the camera. If I was though, I would analyze every aspect of my body and face before even considering uploading it to Facebook or Instagram. But lately, I found myself using my body frequently to create stories. I'm not sure how I got over the fear of my own body. But it started in April where I "transformed" into my alter egos to make my photos.
It's going to sound a bit strange but when I am in front of the camera, I am not Steven Baboun. I am not male. I am not Arab, Haitian, whatever. I am who I want to be and who I need to be to create my visual stories. And because I can morph into my alter egos (whether that be a girl, a smoker, a 70s call boy, and so on), I'm no longer scared of photographing myself. I don't know how it happen, but it just did.
The mind is powerful. The embodiment of your art is powerful. When people say "that's a cool photo of you," I always get tripped up. Because that's not me. And because it's not me, I can focus on every aspect of the art I want to create. You tracking?
Anyway, that's all I have for today. Summer's been busy. Teaching photography to some cool kids. Post about that coming soon.
For now, enjoy some visual art pieces I worked on a couple of weeks ago. I merge photo and design. The series is called Words And No Words: Gay and No Gay (post about that coming soon too).
How do you use your body for art? I wanna know.
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