
Untitled Film Still #56, 1980 (in Masters of Photography) by Cindy Sherman
I just wanted to illustrate the concept of "persona", a concept we live with in these media controlled days. All public personalities display and carefully manage their personae and try (some don't) to keep their private lives private. We, the public "eye", are the recipients of their personae's choreography (called PR!).
Cindy Sherman is the ideal choice. She photographed mostly herself but that is not her, in the sense you can say you know her, she is a carefully planned artistic persona, like Moby Dick's narrator. Bloggers are also personae in that sense, a public manufactured character not to be mistaken by the private person.
An excerpt of her biography taken from cindysherman.com:
By turning the camera on herself, Cindy Sherman has built a name as one of the most respected photographers of the late twentieth century. Although, the majority of her photographs are pictures of her, however, these photographs are most definitely not self-portraits. Rather, Sherman uses herself as a vehicle for commentary on a variety of issues of the modern world: the role of the woman, the role of the artist and many more. It is through these ambiguous and eclectic photographs that Sherman has developed a distinct signature style. Through a number of different series of works, Sherman has raised challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art.