I think it was Jean Mohr who recommended that all serious photographers produce a self-portrait at least once a month. I can’t locate the source of the quote, so I don’t know the reasons for his recommendation. However, I can come up with some reasons on my own:
• Photographers spend most of their time on only one side of the lens. Sitting on the other side of the lens reminds us what it’s like to be the subject of a photograph. This reminder can help us to shoot with more empathy.
• Shooting a self-portrait in sequence, month on month, documents our ageing. Often, when we view an image, whether of a landscape or a building or a person, we view it as a fixed presentation. The frame contains all there is of the picture. Despite the illusion, we know that a picture is also the tracings of a dynamic world that changes over time. A series of self-portraits reminds us that we change with it. It is both humbling and liberating to discover that we are as ephemeral as autumn leaves or graffiti on a wall.
• Sometimes, a self-portrait can anchor us in a context. Sometimes, that doesn’t matter. But at other times—like now, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic—it is useful, even healthy, to recognize how we are embedded in a given cultural and historic moment. This acts as a counterweight to the common photographic hubris of regarding ourselves as objective viewers who stand outside our circumstances.
• Finally, there is the practical benefit that, when we are isolating ourselves, self-portraits give us something to do with our gear.
