take self portraits, not selfies.

there are 8.1 billion people on this planet 8.1 billion people and I've decided that out of all of those people the person that I'm going to take pictures of is me understandably this might lead one to interpret self-portraits to be a bit narcissistic or or self-indulgent at the least and maybe you're right about that maybe it's nothing more than useless naval game in or maybe it's a lesson in [Music] empathy perhaps self-portraits are actually a longstanding tradition amongst artists in an attempt to further understand [Music] themselves and as a result learn to further understand one

another and ultimately Humanity [Music] now not all self-portraits are created equally snapping a quick selfie with the squad at the fingerboard Park isn't exactly going to create World Peace but selfies are still self-portraits they mainly serve as a simple documentation of your appearance and your location and Association but a self-portrait can be so much more than that as stated in the name it's a portrayal of one's self and you and I both know that there is far more to yourself than just your appearance or location but that's not to say that selfies are inferior in

any way as a matter of fact some of the most revered artwork of all time I would categorize to be [Music] selfies I took a day to study some different self-portraits at the Met and just about every self-portrait I saw from the Renaissance period And even the Baroque and Ro R Mantic period I would consider all to be selfies they document the artist's appearance and maybe a relevant location or possession and in some cases would even attempt to portray themselves to be more important or more wealthy than they actually were sounds like the selfie hasn't

changed much honestly during the Renaissance period painters weren't really even considered artists they were considered Craftsmen much like a carpenter or a black Smith their job was just to document how a person or a scene looked but right around the time that photography was invented you start to see some really interesting changes in artwork impressionism cubism expressionism surrealism Modern Art had taken off now it's not like photography was the sole reason that all of these art forms were born it's far more complex than that there's far more f factors and and reactions that that created

these art forms but it still is a very interesting correlation to me that as soon as we became capable of documenting exactly how a scene or person looked through photography and as artists started to see and understand that this was possible it's almost like you can see complete freedom of form and expression breathed into painting once painting was no longer primarily a form of documentation that's when it really started to become an art form I I figured I was going to be in the museum for like 2 hours tops um and I ended up being

there for 4 hours but that was like that was one of the more enjoyable ways I've ever experienced Museum because I was only looking for self-portraits so I didn't have to like feel that overwhelm of trying to see every single thing and just getting burnt out and worn out out trying to see everything possible so being able to kind of just zip through the parts that there weren't any self-portraits and then stop anytime there were self-portraits was actually like an extremely enjoyable experience and oh man I've got some inspiration I learned some things it was

a it was a great day in the past when I've done self-portraits I've really only taken selfies this time around the goal is to scratch just a little deeper than that I want to get just a couple of self-portraits that convey a feeling or or capture something just a little bit deeper about myself so to start off I just bought some really cheap clear plastic painters blankets and a black shower curtain I'm going to play around a little bit with this idea of feeling trapped trapped in who you are and some of the same patterns

you can't seem to shake about yourself and the character that you are things that you can't change like like where you grew up and the country you were born in and the culture that raised you there's this somewhat suffocating feeling of being stuck with yourself and despite the infinite amount of human experiences that are possible you are confined to this one single body okay I'm so tired now but basically this ended up being the final setup and I think the the ones that I'll be the most happy with it was a so much trial and

error there are so many dumb looking Clips in there I probably won't even show you the most embarrassing ones and you'll see some really embarrassing ones but I think I still think I got maybe two or three that I really like though so yay I'm going to bed I'm actually pretty happy with these I'm stoked on how a few of these turned out I I think it conveys it certainly conveys some type of feeling how you interpret it might be different than how I intended it to feel when I created it but they certainly convey

a a feeling and an emotion and yeah I'm I'm happy with them so that was day one but day two was not as [Music] successful I I just was planning on going out for a walk to take self-portraits only via Reflections I thought that this would be a good way to gather self-portraits and convey the part of me that sometimes just wants to hide and to blend into the shadows and not really be that scene but uh the end result is just so I didn't really find any Reflections that I was that excited about um

but I wanted to include this because it's just part of the process like failures happen all the time and uh it still was so enjoyable just to walk around and to be thinking in this different way thinking through Reflections and attempting to get something I just didn't get anything that I liked so on to the next [Music] when it comes to making artwork that attempts to express an emotion and to convey a certain feeling there is no tool more powerful in my opinion than music I rely on music heavily in my work I think it

does so much of the heavy lifting in in conveying emotion and and assisting to keep the story moving along so finding the right music to pair with my videos is such a crucial part of the process and music bed just makes that part of the process so easy and enjoyable when I use music in my work I view that as a collaboration with an artist rather than just a mere editing tool since music bed allows their artists to maintain the rights to their own music the result is a platform that is full of music from

super talented artists that genuinely care about their work and in my opinion music can just make or break a film or a video so it's invaluable to have access to a collection of music like this I'm a huge fan I've been using music bed forever the collection of music is vast and it's always growing the playlists are great and the search tools just make it easy to find what you need you can hear the difference for yourself and start a 14-day free trial with the link in the description [Music] I was planning on taking a

completely different picture right now and as I was setting up for it I saw this light on the ground and I don't know I like I like this perspective with the fishee kind of just feels like it's missing something fog oh it looks way better with the fog everything looks better with fog I I wouldn't say that I love these I'm glad GL I did them I I feel like they were kind of they were very spur of the moment like I saw that light on the floor and was like cool I'm going play around

with this use the fishee and I think there's something there I don't think I quite captured it but I'm happy enough with them um they're fine welcome please come [Music] [Applause] cool what's up how's it going this was such a fun unexpected twist in the self-portrait Journey um I've gotten pretty used to working by myself most of the time and especially for a self-portrait project I wasn't really planning on working with anyone but then I was talking with my friend Bella and she mentioned that her Studio space was avail able if I wanted to use

it at all and at this point my self-portraits felt a little incomplete I didn't feel like I'd captured the one yet trying to decide which color to use is a backdrop and I have no good reason for it but we're going to go with myar it yeah because the all the other ones have been experimental so what why not keep it experimental but this became such a successful shoot we kind of just played around with different setups and after Bella was already so generous with her space she also helped me come up with all kinds

of sick ideas with the myar and different setups we could do so it just ended up being such a fun shoot but the end result are definitely some of my favorite photos from this whole experiment and um honestly I I think I got the one I think I got the one that most accurately represents what it feels like to be Jake FU oh brother this guy okay maybe not quite but I do love the fact that I ended up with a handsome Squidward photo of myself but honestly the other reflection one that one I actually

love where my face doesn't look like handsome Squidward but it looks distorted and and very just out of place for a few reasons this photo portrays something that feels so accurate about myself and that is a difficulty wow this is going to get this is going to get really so often I feel that I struggle to see in myself what other people see in me it's like when I'm looking in the mirror I see this extremely distorted version of myself I have trouble saying kind things to myself I have trouble liking things about myself and

so I feel like this photo captures that I feel like this photo represents looking in the mirror and just seeing this Distortion and this ugly version of myself that other people don't see that and it's kind of hilarious in this photo because I largely hit it but during this entire shoot I had like a swollen eyelid so the whole time I felt pretty ner nervous that my face was like going to look weird because my eyelid was swollen so it's hilarious that this photo turned out like this cuz it's kind of how I felt that

day Schaefer was with me and I was telling him that I felt like Sloth from The Goonies so wow actually now that I look at it this photo also makes me look like Sloth from The Goonies which I felt like that whole week so hey I think with all that said it was a success I got um I got a couple self-portraits that I'm really happy with also got some good selfies along the way it was a success this was super fun honestly I I recommend it there there's something really free about taking self-portraits that

don't just convey what you look like like self-portraits that go beyond appearance it's really refreshing and somehow it felt easier to do than uh than taking selfies I I really enjoyed trying to convey how I feel rather than how I look but if you if you end up doing a self-portrait after this video please tag me in it I'd love to see any attempts and how it goes for you and just thanks as always for being here I really appreciate it and I'll see you soon [Music]