Among other things, with the explosion of digital photography, blogging, social networking, aging in general and my one time assistant running away to South America with my new muse, his Canon, selling it off like an old guitar to some beach bum in Argentina, I seem to have momentarily lost my voice.

But in my idle time of not photographing best friends, beautiful women and musicians I’ve become intrigued with this new trend in photographic self-promotion. I call this “Gen-N,” a generation of narcissists. Maybe that is too harsh.

I remember my most painful assignment for Photography 101 in college, the self-portrait. Was this a test to see if I could use the timer on my camera? To focus my camera without the subject actually in the frame? It pained me to turn the camera on myself.

This was back in the 90s before I knew about Cindy Sherman, before Friendster and the iPhone, before Sea of Shoes, Flickr and my most recent discovery, http://lookbook.nu

After wasting several rolls of TMAX 400, after wasting several hours and liters of chemicals in the darkroom I showed up to class with several failed “self-portraits.”

A few years later I realized that all of my photographs were self-portraits. There is something that I am desperate to communicate that can only be explained on the tip of Marilyn Manson’s tongue, in the intricate matching of the stripes at the crotch seam of Gwen Stefani’s pants, in the tired vacant stare of my best friend with her head on the floor, and in the colors of a plastic toy out of focus.

Every opening of the shutter feels like a confession. For most of us that is quite a release regardless of our intentions.

Self-portrait with Alyssa, 2008
© Amy V. Cooper