What is the best part of yourself?
Inspired by Wendy Ewald’s similar work with children, I asked this of my class when we were juniors at university. Then I set out to photograph everyone, showcasing their favourite parts. Photographing everyone was fun because while doing so, I had these intimate photographer/subject moments with my classmates…moments that you can only understand if you’ve ever been on either side of the camera in a one-on-one situation. Even though I saw these people everyday, the time I spent photographing them was different than any other time I had spent with them. In some instances, I was my photographing my best friends; in others, I was photographing people who I only saw in class. Whatever the case was, I felt close to each person when I photographed him or her. I was making the person vulnerable—taking his or her image, trying to be respectful as well as truthful. Back then I normally photographed strangers or my dogs or landscapes or objects. Collaborating with the students in my class while making photographs for this project was a whole new experience for me.
However the students came to their decisions—girlfriend, poll, random selection, actually thinking about it—I was just happy when they had selected a body part and showed up on time for a photo shoot. My first 2 questions to each person were, “So what’s your favourite part?” and “Why?” When they started answering the 2nd question is when I would start photographing. Sometimes their answers helped me come up with ideas for my photographs; other times, not as much. In some cases the people in my class surprised me. Some of the students who are loud and talkative in class became shy and anxious in front of the camera; whereas some of the seemingly reserved students became active and at ease. Just as quickly as we had started, the roll of film would finish, and as it rewound I would usually say, “See? That wasn’t so painful.”
While I toiled away in the darkroom, the other students were supposed to write about why they chose their hair, neck, dimple, whatever as their favourite part. It took bribes, pleas, and threats, but eventually all the students wrote their text for me. Getting emailed or handed each bit of text was exciting because I was so intrigued to really find out why people had chosen what they had. Some of the explanations made me smile; all of them gave me insight into the people I had been with for the previous 3 years.
The text accompanying each photograph is completely unedited, so it is exactly how it was emailed or IMed to me. For the handwritten text, I simply typed it all in verbatim. So read on to find out the favourite body parts of each person in the Communication Design class of 2004. Think about what these favourites say about each person. Then ask yourself, “What is the best part of me? Why?”