Echoism, Your Left Side Vs. Your Right Side.

Above: one of the subjects in Wolkenstein's photography study of facial asymmetry

Do you have a good side? Most people do. Rarely are faces symmetrical and more often than not, features are misaligned and various facial characteristics make one side of your face appear very different from the other.



I first introduced you to the work of Julian Wolkenstein three years ago. Echoism, a recent project of his, plays with the notion of your own identity as expressed through your features. What do you look like? What are the things that make you look like you? If you are made symmetrical, do you consider yourself more beautiful, less so, or is it just weird? Or is it you at all? Do you have a best side? What is to be said of left and right brain dominance?



The process is a face-to-camera portrait, after which the image is split into a left and a right section, then one side is horizontally flipped and placed against that same side to make up two separate portraits of the right side and left side of a human face.

In photographer Julian Wolkenstein's initial project, the subjects were specifically cast for their individual facial features. They were photographed front to camera and in the same position. They were asked not to express emotions or character.

Below are images from the study:









Echoism is now available for you to try via an online website or with an app you can buy in the itunes app store. If you've got a built in camera on your computer, you can visit the website, have your image immediately taken and upload it to the site.

Echoism.org is a project by artist and photographer Julian Wolkenstein.
via Trendland via Notcot

Julian Wolkenstein's Unusual Photography

Photographer Julian Wolkenstein has shot a lot of images you are probably familiar with. Having photographed large ad campaigns for food, cars, airlines and more, you've come across his commercial photography for everything from Sony and Vodaphone to Snickers in many international publications.

While he's an adept portraitist, landscape and commercial photographer (his work is really beautiful), it's his non-commissioned work that I find so interesting because it is both simultaneously beautiful and bizarre.

Take a look.

People as pets:




Horses with hair extensions:


Harmony gets her hair braided for the shot shown at the beginning of this post:

above image courtesy of MSNBC

Yawning people portraits:




See all his work here.

Be sure to my post on Wolkenstein's Echoism Project in which he marries left and right sides of people's faces through digital composition