I thought I might experiment with one handed selfies. They are so popular at the moment I wanted to see if they were mainly shot up people’s noses out of necessity. Nope. Your arm is long enough to get your chin out and down. Due to the short focal distance there is some distortion of features that occurs with the lens. I used a 35mm. I found shots not looking directly at the camera were better. A distorted, bulbous nose is no friend to any woman’s portrait!
My header is a selfie. One of those creative self portraits we love where we don’t truly show ourselves. Why do we have such an aversion to our own image? The reality of how we look never matches the view we have of ourselves in our minds. The reality check is most often harsh. How many shots did you take for this challenge before you were happy with the result?
I am thinking of exploring portraits. I want to use posing to present the best version of a person to them self so that the reality more closely resembles their mind view. In light of the challenge I decided that I should start on myself. How can I expect others to get in front of my camera if I will not be photographed?
Here I am.
(You may notice I am not in focus. I had prefocused on the fence and didn’t bother redoing it. I am sitting on a reflector in front of my mother’s backyard fence. A ladder made a very nice tripod, which I had forgot to pack. It was my first attempt posing anyone! It took about 7 shots to get a pose I was relatively happy with.)
Learning the Light 