Self portraits.

Sitting in my room, in the questionable armchair that I covered with a blanket. I just finished taking photos and sending them to Andrew. I asked him to help me keep up with my photo practice, seeing as it’s way too easy for me to let it slip by and be lazy! This morning I told him I didn’t feel like leaving the house and then I wondered aloud what I’d do while he was sleeping. He told me to take pictures and then he gave me assignment parameters: at least four images and no macro. I was like “No macro?! This is bullshit!” and he laughed and told me it’s an assignment. 

So, armed with that information, I looked around my room to see what kind of a scene I could attempt to setup. I decided that I hadn’t spent nearly enough time with the armchair and that the yellow wall behind it actually had potential. My biggest issue continues to be a lack of models. Someday I’ll fix this. For now I have been forced to use myself. I don’t like doing self portraits, they feel so self involved, plus they’re a lot more difficult and time consuming. Those last two points are bogus because they really only serve to continue to push me toward better technique and greater creative control over the camera.

After I got out of the shower I started to brainstorm some more about what I’d do. I spent some of today looking at photo shoots of Katy Perry, so those were still fresh in my mind. I was stuck on her legs and her retro style and therefore decided to do something with my legs. This at least gave my face a break. The other day I took 250 pictures of just my face and it was exhausting. I moved the armchair a bit away from the bed and then scooted my smaller wooden chair into position in front of the armchair. Then I took a stack of books and measured them up as a platform for my camera to sit on. I had a unique issue for this shoot in that I needed vertical images. Fortunately I didn’t have any incidences where my camera toppled off of the stack of books. Also, this would have been a great time to have my remote working, but sadly the battery is dead -_- 

From my self portraits the other night.

Either way I eventually got some OKish photos of my legs sticking up in the air and over the arm of the chair. It was fun enough and good practice in careful framing and patience. 

The pictures felt a little odd to me and while brainstorming positions I was also thinking about what kind of editing I would do to them. The brown of the chair and the yellow of the wall had me thinking ‘old faded film polaroid’ style. Andrew and I were actually just discussing polaroid film and I was telling him that we could save money by just making a template and dropping pictures into it as opposed to buying the real film. The real thing is pretty much always better, but that stuff is way too expensive. Anyway, I set to work making a template and I think it turned out alright. I’d do well to study a real image and try to recreate the feel of it. I’ll add it to the list :)

-MJ