Today I am putting myself out there - literally.
My plan is to do as many shots of people this month as I can. There is a method to my madness. My Dad and I are co-teaching a photo class at his church this fall and I will have a session to lead that will deal with shooting pictures of people. I guess I have some background in this as I have shot quite a few weddings in recent years as well as doing several family sittings. Probably about 10 years ago I got the bug for shooting "people" pictures and found that I have a love for this type of photography. So as part of the effort to prepare myself for this session (including shooting images for PowerPoint presentations) I am "focusing" (pun intended) on shooting people pictures. I know I will get tired of shooting pictures of myself (as everyone else will tire of looking at them) so if you have a desire or need for a few individual or group portraits, please let me know. I am looking for models this month.
So on to this shot of myself. I hate being in pictures. It's probably one of the reasons I shoot pictures - if I'm the one behind the camera, then I'm less likely to be captured in a picture. I'd probably say that the self portrait is probably one of the greatest challenges I face in portraits. If I can create an image I like of myself then that will be something special. Did I accomplish that today? Not in my mind. This is a place to start. I can see a lot of room for improvement and I hope to finish the month of July with another self portrait. We'll see if I think I've learned anything.
Please feel free to comment and offer all positive, negative and constructive feedback. I really want to learn from this process and need the feedback that only others can offer. I've got fairly thick skin and can handle it! I think critique is probably one of the most valuable ways to grow in photography (or any other skill).
Shot spex: RAW Image, Pentax K10D, ISO 800, 130mm, f11, 1/30 sec., flash set at -2.0, tripod (of course).
PhotoShop spex: Smart Sharpened (as always), and adjusted the Contrast barely, converted to BW (to mask the goofy red t-shirt I was wearing), adjusted the Shadow and Highlights a bit to bring in detail on my hair.
Ron -- I know what you mean about not wanting to be in front of the camera, and the best place to be if you want to hide is behind it . That said I think your self portrait turned out very well.
ReplyDeleteYou said you were looking for comments & criticism so here it goes:
Your composition is great. I really like where you have positioned yourself in the frame. I also like how you captured the texture of the background, it’s a tiny detail but I think it adds something. Additionally the shot looks very well lit; I guess that is largely from the sun coming in from the left side of the frame, the fill from your flash looks natural and doesn’t distract at all. Did you diffuse the sunlight at all because the light raps around your face very nicely or was that all fill flash? Either way it worked whatever you did.
As far as criticism goes I don’t have a lot, it is a great photo. I am reaching here because this isn’t something I would even really care about normally, but maybe a bit more contrast between the right side of your face (left side of frame) and the background but off the top of my head not sure how you could accomplish that easily in this setting. You could move away from the wall a bit but you would lose the texture, which I think is more important, and I am not even sure it would accomplish the goal.
Overall great shot.