Self-Portraits

I know this looks like two blogs in one week from me, but don't worry - I'm not trying to overacheive, just catch up!

So I decided that for this entry, I'm going to write about self-portraiture. As you can tell from most of the photos I've posted here so far, I didn't exactly get my start in portrait photography. It's always felt more natural for me to photograph nature, animals, and still objects. People are harder to control. But when I decided I wanted to have photography as my career, I knew I needed to become more proficient in portraiture. When I first started out taking shots with models in them, I used my friends, my parents, people I knew. And that was ok, but still difficult. After a while, it came to me. I needed to know how to take pictures of people, right? So why didn't I put myself in the model's shoes for a while? I started experimenting with self-portraiture, but I didn't spend too much time on it. Eventually, through the photo-sharing website Flickr, I heard about the 365 project. The terms of this project are simple - take a picture a day for a whole year. Hence the '365.' Most of the people I saw working on a '365' were shooting all of their photos as self-portraits, and I decided to give it a try. What better way to gain experience than to make practicing a habit?

Anyway, I ended up stopping my '365' after Day 90 due to a few complications, but here are some of my favorite shots from those first 90 days.

^ Day One - A last minute, 11:45 PM shot...with, obviously, whatever I found laying around. No timer, just hand-held. ^

Day Ten - Taken at Musician's Supply while I was waiting for my boyfriend to get through with work. Loved the fog...this was two exposures, with and without me, put together in Photoshop. First shot was hand-held, second with a timer.

Day Twenty-Four - This one's a little scary. I call it "Bionic Tess," haha. The little silver ball is actually the top to a pepper grinder. This shot was taken on macro, hand-held.

Day Thirty-Nine - Another double exposure, this time both on a timer. They were both shot at the same angle and then one was flipped. I erased the half without me in each picture and then blended the layers together. It was shot on a fluorescent white balance, which gives it that blue look.

Day Forty-Four - A triple exposure. Same methods to put it together, but a different effect entirely. The sharp shades of blue are left there intentionally...I just like the way it looks.

Day Forty-Six - Another double exposure, this time done a little differently. I had a tripod to use with my self timer, so I was able to line my shots up a little better. I took the two images into Photoshop, combined them, set the top layer to multiply, and erased around my edges. Can you tell I went through a "blue phase?"

Day Fifty-Eight - I love this picture. Self-timer, some slight touch-ups in Photoshop. I was actually laying down on a black rug - simply had to use Levels to get this effect.

Day Seventy - A slight throwback to the "blue phase," this was taken in front of my bathroom window. I didn't use any lighting except what was already provided by nature, and I think that's what makes this photo so cool in my eyes. The cross-lighting is just perfect to illuminate my face. Love it.

^ Day Eighty-One - I guess I was hungry! Taken on self-timer...it took a few tries to get this one right. ^

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Anyway, as I hope you can tell, I did learn a lot from my ninety days of self-portraiture, even if I got too busy to finish out the full 365. I feel more comfortable taking pictures with models now, and I tend to think a whole lot more 'out of the box' when posing people.