K8 Hardy would hardly have called this a self-portrait

#20 of K8 Hardy's Position Series features an androgynous person wearing a Frida Kahlo-esque headpiece. He or she obviously really loves denim.  At first it looks like the person is flipping us off, but when you look closely you’ll see it is actually K8 Hardy herself in some sort of Vogue position. #20 is part of a series of photographs in which K8 uses herself as a model. Don’t call em selfies​ though, that implies the photos are about herself. K8 explains this isn't the case, she wasn't thinking about herself while creating this series. She just wanted to keep it simple and use herself as a model.

Compared to most of the other images in the series, #20 is very colorful, she is wearing a lot of make-up and the costume is over the top. Many of the images in the series are full-body portraits in somewhat banal settings. Say, hotel rooms, backyards, alleys, fast-food restaurants, but without actually showing any details that would locate a specific place. The woman on the image could be anywhere!

Sometimes she felt that the photo was “too slippery”. Not literally of course, but just too slick and boring. This made her manipulate basically every image in the series. K8 used a technique developed in the early twentieth century. She manipulated the original print by covering part of the photo paper during the exposure. When you look at #20 it looks like she is wearing a white bow, but she wasn’t. That is why #20 is not a photograph but a photogram.