Continual State of Becoming

 Week 18 (March 4): Self Portrait I took this in the bathroom mirror using my 50mm lens.  I'm still not at all crazy about making eye contact in self portraits, so this time I didn't even try.  I went for a solarized effect in processing (at least that's what I'm calling it), and then I toned the black and white image a little bit so it wasn't so cold.   This is what I create when I finally stopped worrying about what I should do for a self portrait and did what I wanted to do instead.  I think it's my favorite self portrait so far.

I did quite a bit of self portrait practice during January.  These are all really moody, which is kind of how I felt a lot, and seemed to work well with the winter light.  I still feel really uncomfortable making eye contact, but that just gives me something to work on.

My laundry has been piling up. I think it has something to do with my neglecting it in favor of other things... playing at the park with the kids, taking pictures for this project, taking pictures for my photo class, running, reading... all of which are wa-a-a-ay better than laundry.  But today I went to get Aaron dressed and he was out of shirts.  Completely out.  So I knew I had to get back on track and tackle some real world tasks.  I decided that maybe if I plan a picture of my folded and ready to be put away laundry, I'd actually wash it and fold it.  I think I basically bribed myself to clean my family's clothes.  Well, it worked.  I don't know that I love the picture, but my clothes are folded and put away, so in my mind it was a total success.  Don't be surprised if I throw up some photos of purging toys, washing dishes, and scrubbing floors in the future... apparently I'll actually get that done if I know I need it for a photo. (I'm ...

So back to working on self portraits.  I'm really struggling with this.  I don't really like any of them so far.  But I keep trying.  I think the problem is that I don't really know what it is I'm trying to "get."  I don't have a vision for how this should work.  I just come up with an idea because I think it's different or worth trying out, take a few shots and hope one of them will be magical.  But usually they aren't.  Sad face.  I'm not sure at this point if I should keep trying, push through and hope I'll eventually realize what it is I'm trying to accomplish (and maybe how to accomplish it as well), or if I should give up, take a long break, wait for inspiration to strike me when I least expect it?  The connection between this lack of success and my own sense of self is not lost on me though.  I think that's why I feel the need to push on.  What I mean is that when I take a picture of other people, I'm happy with it, but ...

I've been wanting to try this out... take pictures of myself running.  I couldn't really figure out how to do it outside, but since I do most of my running on the treadmill these days I decided to just go with that.  I used a tripod and my 18-55 lens (which is my worst lens, but the only thing that would work for this situation) and tried a couple different angles.  I think my favorites are the ones showing my feet moving... they look so fast! Walking and hydrating to start off. Light jogging for 10 minutes. Usually in the middle of a treadmill workout I do what I call "sprints and recovery" It basically means I run as fast as I can for 2 minutes, then I jog for 2 minutes.  Repeat a few times.  I'm sure there's some technical running term for this (or better method), but I don't know what it is and this works for me.  At the moment, my fastest sprint speed in 8.0 mph Running hard. "you've never seen my feet 'caus...

I took a couple shots just for fun the other day.  I was trying to play around with lighting angles.  It's interesting to see how different the pictures come out. I'm facing the window pretty straight on.  Window is on my right side. Window is still on my right side, but at more of an angle. Window is behind me.

I got my recent film files today.  Here are the bathroom selfies I tried (that go along with the ones from the dslr I previously posted).  They are a little off from what I wanted, but I think I understand why for the most part, now I just have to learn how to correct things and how to change the way I normally shoot so that things turn out better in B&W.  But in the interest of learning from mistakes, here they are: I totally exposed the wrong thing.  I'll try again. too blurry Gah!  Not a bad picture, just a too serious face.  Also, probably need to just go ahead and use a tripod next time.

I also tried a couple shots with my film camera... though it will be a while before I have those results (film is a good way to practice delayed gratification by the way).  But here are my instant digitals...

On the way home from DC I noticed that the metro windows were pretty reflective.  I seized the opportunity for a few cute shots of Dylan and then turned the camera to myself.

Self portraits are HARD.  And yet I feel compelled to try and do some.  I think this is really more about body image for me than photography.  I feel like I've started taking good pictures of other people, and yet I always feel like pictures of me are terrible.  But I know that's not really true... I know it's that when I look at my image I choose to focus on the (too many) imperfections.  So in a way I think that taking self portraits may help me get over that.  I'm not so convinced that will happen, but I'm willing to give it a try.  So here we go. I decided to start with the hardest and my least favorite aspect of my body......... my skin-- so these are close up portraits.  I still have high school-ish oily skin.  Nothing really helps it.  I've heard that the benefit of oily skin is that you don't winkle as much, but for some reason I don't think I'm seeing that benefit either as I already have some decent forehead and eye wrinkles....

I've been trying to take some occasional self portraits here and there.  Not so much because I think I make an awesome photo model, I feel super self conscious and weird, but I think it's good practice, especially when I have to use my tripod. This was taken in October/November, before I really knew anything about anything and was just playing around with the camera a lot.  I want to use this to compare more recent and future shots....  looking away from the camera because looking right at the camera felt awkward and uncomfortable (though now I think "what the heck was I supposed to be looking at in this picture????  --real life answer:  anything but the camera... because it's scary).  Actually looking at the camera felt fine, but looking at the images of myself looking at the camera felt really awkward and uncomfortable.  I still need to work on that.