My friend Holman Turner asked me recently to write a little something about what I got out of the self portrait class he offers. A couple of years ago I took Holman’s Self Portrait class. It was my first focused attempt at self portraiture. At the first class meeting “you can not lead someplace you are not willing to go” was written on the white board and Holman’s first instruction to us was to write down our definition of intimacy. This lead to some exercises designed to explore and illustrate these themes. I don’t recall a single discussion about f-stops, lens choice or camera mechanics. As an introspective guy with many years of journaling, therapy and other flavors of self awareness training behind me I felt I “got it” and my pictures were going to reflect that right away. Eventually they did. Initially not so much. In fact at the next class, when we showed our first image of ourselves, another student looked at my photo, at me, at the photo and asked rather incredulously, “do you really think you look like that?”

His challenge to me was not, I think, based so much on the technical aspects of the photo but the representation of myself it captured. And this goes to the heart of what Holman seeks to convey in his class – a development of your eye to discern an image of a person that conveys an honest, true sense of that person by looking at yourself for those same characteristics. Working through the class I became aware of the “public face” and “private face” of myself and how to see it in others. Holman eschews tricks and subterfuge to “catch” the subject unaware and unguarded. Instead his approach is to establish and build trust with the subject to allow the private face to appear. Since one can not lead where one is afraid to go this sort of approach begins with establishing that relationship with yourself.

As a photographer the difference in my pictures has been profound. I am able to work in close proximity to my subjects now without the internal anguish and apprehension I used to feel and which couldn’t help but be felt by my subjects. I’m able to make photos that are engaging, compelling, and honest. I’ve found my own sense of what I want to capture in a portrait – that is, I’ve found my photographic signature.

This isn’t to say Holman’s class is the only way I would have achieved this or that everyone will find it as useful as I did. It worked for me. Eventually. I actually took the class twice because, to be honest, at the end of the first one I still didn’t quite have it. That is to say I thought my images of myself were still pretty crappy. Doing it again the next year was very helpful. I continue to use self portraits as a way to keep in touch with that photographic sense.

But I was thinking: “Mister Brainwash” is to art as Sarah Palin is to politics. I’m just saying.