ABSTRACT
A portrait session in a daguerreotype studio was an arduous process. The daguerreotype portrait was worth the wait, because of its extremely fine detail. The portraits of Judith Joy Ross appear to be distantly related to the avatar model. Seen from one angle, the subjects of her portraits are like avatars, but only in the original sense of the Sanskrit word, which means incarnation. Some self-portraits can be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original mirror image, to transform the Ideal-I into something else, something like an alternate identity. The subject of the portrait is presented in an apparently conventional head and shoulders format, facing the viewer. Lee's work relies on imposture-her performance of an assumed identity, placed in the context of a group portrait that masquerades as a snapshot. Simpson’s photograph departs from the detached ethnographic model. She shows the reader the backside of the mask, its inside.
