When you make a picture of yourself — in paint, in pencil, with a camera, or even in words — that work is a self-portrait. In an art museum the word is at home: a painter looks in a mirror, or works from a photograph, and puts their own face on the canvas. Famous painters did this again and again over a lifetime, so you can watch them grow old on the wall. Though actually, the word is wider than oil paint. A writer can offer a self-portrait in a book, meaning a careful description of their own character, not a picture at all. Young people sometimes call any photo of their own face a self-portrait, but in careful talk a selfie is the quick phone shot you take in a second, and a self-portrait is the one you meant to make and spent time on. The word itself is ordinary and neutral. It does not praise or blame; it only says who made the picture, and who is in it.