Rosalia | Self Portrait Photography

_{'Rosalia' | Self Portrait Photography}

This is a self portrait that I captured in 2014. A part of my 'Roses Never Fade' series, it revolves around the concept that death can never be a factor for the disappearance of love. Even though the physical body is gone, love will always be present.

Rosalia, a festival of roses in Rome to commemorate the dead, is used as an inspiration for the photograph. The red roses [which are widely used as a symbol of love] appear to be the most vibrant element of the photograph to show that love is ever powerful. The sacrifices are symbolized by the blood dripping from the roses, in which love always comes with it. Touches of vibrant red are found in some parts of the body to show that love will still be alive no matter how much the color of the person fades, even if the person himself fades away.

A Little Bit About The Process

As a person who has trust issues, I always prefer to work by myself no matter how hard it is to be done alone. It's fun. I always do the stuff and if something goes wrong, I can only blame myself. I'm comfortable with it. Though I can still work with other people, I feel like I am most powerful if I do it alone. And that is the reason why I always do self portraits. No drama, just me.

First thing that I do is conceptualize for the photograph. From the composition to the colors and props, I write it all down and sketch it. After everything has been finalized, I then find the things that I need to find. In this photo, I needed to buy roses from the market just to create this photograph. Yeah, it comes with a price, but it's all worth it. I have my wig (I love wigs!) and paint for the blood. After everything is prepared, I then get my tripod and set my camera on timer and manually focus the lenses.

Once the shooting is done, I then do the post processing in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Doing self portrait photography allowed me to learn a lot in using photo editing tools, which is a very helpful experience for me as I am also learning to do digital art. Not only I was enjoying it, but I was also learning a lot from it. It made me develop my character and discover my strengths and weaknesses.

Years from now I still see myself doing self portraits because I consider this as a therapy for my mental injury. I am always grateful I found this type of art as an outlet for self expression.