The Identity Experiment

This was an idea that came to me extremely last minute—I saw a singular photo online, and I knew I wanted to try and recreate it. The original photo was shot in a studio, and the photographer had originally taken a model with a mask, and shot the images with a long exposure effect.

I, however, did not have access to a studio when attempting this shoot. I searched my school’s campus, asking around for any empty spaces that I may be able to borrow, and upon further examination, I was able to sneak into a vacant dance studio. However, it was only unoccupied for roughly half an hour—so I had a very limited amount of time to try and bring this concept together.

I initially attempted the long-exposure effect on Arnav, the model pictured above, but with only half an hour to spare, I could not get the images to look quite like how I had pictured, so I had him stand in front of the mirror instead, adjusting my settings to make the photos look as clear as possible. We alternated between shots with the mask, no mask, and him sitting down and facing his own reflection—and I was rather pleased at the results. For such a last minute shoot on our college campus, I could not have been more excited to look through, edit, and upload these photos.

My hopes for this shoot were to portray a picture of a man who is struggling with his identity—someone who doesn’t quite know who he is or what he wants, and by having Arnav face the mirror (pictured below) I was able to capture this idea somewhat. By concealing his real face with a mask and giving him a mirror, he would be confronting himself and his own identity, in a way—making for a strange and unsettling scene.