The Selfie Portrait was all about portraying our story with our photos.
The first step was to get inspired by a photographer to take photos of my own body parts, that represented me and my life. I chose Naina Gahlaut, an Indian photographer, because her nature and Indian culture inspired photos really spoke out to me. Which is why I decided to take photos in a park surrounded by nature and also experimenting with shadows.
After that, I started on ideating for book binding. I made three very different type of prototypes. But, I chose the one who’s cover was made out of corrugated cardboard and tied with a twine macrame. The earthiness of the corrugated cardboard with the rawness of the twine, I feel, really represented my home, India for me. I also used cream papers, brown papers and handmade papers for the pages. I punched holes in all these pages and tied it with the twine. Playing around with it, I came up with a macrame like design by knotting with the twine.
I started experimenting on the prototype’s cover to create an interesting colorful texture with the word “zindagi” written in Hindi.
Next, I went on to set out lay outs for the pages. I just started juggling with different ideas that were related to me and my past. I wanted to include Indian elements like words in Gujarati (my mother tongue), lyrics from a Hindi song, and mehndi (henna) designs, which is one of the main reasons of how I got interested in art. Along with these elements which remind me of my home, I wanted some pages to represent my personality- how I simply laugh too much, my love for art and paints, how organized I like to be, my insecurities, my scars. I represented every picture in a different way, showing how I have different layers to myself, some right there and open like putting a photo in a frame, and some more intimate like in an envelope.
The cover:
I wanted the multiple colours to portray how colorful the culture of India is. And I wrote “Zindagi” in the language Hindi which means life.
The entire process of building this book from scratch was an exciting experience. The handmade book is overall a portrayal of different parts of me.
