My interest in portrait photography led me to the question of what makes a sophisticated portrait: the depiction of the inner essence of the person portrayed, or the individual visual language of the portrait photographer.

As a scientist - which I am - I made the following experiment: I studied the individual style of famous portrait photographers and tried self-portraits in their visual language. The approach may be a bit presumptuous, but taught me a lot about lighting, but even more about the different personal approach of each great master.

Astonishingly different images emerged, making me wonder: Is this me? Do the images show aspects of me to which I myself am blind or are they artificial projections resulting from the respective visual language?

I show in each case a characteristic picture of the mentioned photographer*, the unretouched and the final self-portrait.

*I beg your pardon for not indicating the source.