About

More Than a Photo Booth

What is the Self-Portrait Project?

Created as a participatory art concept in Brooklyn in 2009, the Self-Portrait Project (SPP) is a system and method for self-representation using a camera, two-way mirror, and remote control. The camera shoots through the transparent side of a two-way mirror, with the participant located on the reflective side. Using a remote control, the participant chooses how and when to capture themself. 

In the simple act of letting the model be photographer, the dynamic of the photo changes – as does the energy – and therefore the final image. Giving someone who is accustomed to having their picture “taken” the opportunity to document their own likeness on their own terms produces images which address issues of vanity and insecurity, empowerment and self-esteem, superficiality and substance. As the photographer and model, you are wholly responsible for the images you create of yourself.

Our Core Values

The Self-Portrait Project was founded with social justice ideals as its roots and a love of photography as its driving force. We are culturally curious, socially conscious, and harnessing the communicative power of photography.

As a values-based enterprise we believe in gender equality, marriage equality, and that other worlds are possible.  We believe that Black Lives Matter.  We stand by Standing Rock.  We believe we can help by providing a visual voice for those who have been marginalized, in a way that empowers.  The project intends to serve as a vehicle through which the zeitgeist is captured by those who inspire and occupy it, and to build a living archive based on a foundation of empowerment, quality, and community.

Empowerment

Every participant captures their own photo as they like using the 2-way mirror and remote trigger.

Quality

Images from the Self-Portrait Project are compelling, vibrant, and simply a cut above the rest.

Community

The Self-Portrait Project creates a shared experience both on-location and online after.

Our Story

The Self-Portrait Project (SPP) was created by National Geographic Traveler award-winning photographer Andy Lin, who was a co-founder and artistic director for Other Worlds, a multi-media non-profit which sought to document and disseminate cases of living, thriving alternative economies around the world.

During his time with Other Worlds, Andy traveled the globe photographing social movements such as the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST); worker-controlled factories in Argentina; a gifting economy in Mali; and the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico. The self-portrait mechanism in SPP is influenced by the belief ingrained in many of these societies that decisions are best made by those directly affected by them, or, said another way, “nothing about us without us”.

SPP is influenced by and owes a spiritual and aesthetic debt to a wide variety of sources, including Storycorps; the archival work of John and Alan Lomax; Farm Security Administration images from the New Deal; analog photo booths, Susanna Kraus’ revitalization of the Imago self-portrait camera, the Handsworth Self-Portrait, David Attie’s Russian Self-Portraits, and an endless array of photographers from Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, and Paolo Roversi, to Sebastião Salgado, Malik Sidibe, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.