Reflections of Boredom

You guessed it...when I'm bored and have nothing else to do I take self portraits (well, who I am kidding...I have too much to do...but I needed a break for a bit!)

So, out came the new Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens for some test shots indoors with no flash at 400 ISO.

No clones needed for this shoot! LOL I just took them in my room with the full length mirror..and the only light in the room was my ceiling fan lights.

I'm not happy with the amount of hot pixles I'm getting at ISO 400 but I'm not about to start worrying about that right now.

Here are my favorite "in the mirror" shots of the night. The first one is my top favorite:






Peter from my forum had an idea to merge the 1st & the 4th photos together to see what it would look like if my reflection was looking at the me that is looking at the camera. I think it puts an interesting twist on it:



Then I did some against a painted wall in my room. As usual the hardest part was focusing the camera on nothing. The 50mm made it even tougher than the 18-200.

Tonight was the greenest I've seen my eyes yet in a self portrait. Usually they're a lot more blue but I guess it was the brown shirt and the wall color that changed them. I'm not sure why I mentioned all these details LOL!

Anyway...these are the colored versions:




Then I converted them to Black & White using Itty Bitty Actions and applied a texture and I LOVE how they came out!




So that's me for tonight. I hope this inspires you to do something...anything at all with your photography when you're bored. When all else fails I say take a self portrait! :)

From On High - Taking Photographs Looking Down on Your Subject

I'm always trying to think of new ways to make portraits look interesting. Last night I focused on NOT doing the same ol' straight-on (self) portrait. I got creative with vantage points.

I put the tripod up as high a it would allow (legs fully extended, and middle pole adjusted as high as it would go. Then I positioned the camera at the edge of my black muslin do it yourself backdrop (portion that is well extended out on the floor) and pointed the camera downward.

Next, I crouched under the lens and took a series of shots where I was looking straight up at the lens from below. I purposely wore a black shirt so I would blend in with my surroundings.

I'm so pleased with the results. It was so fun to try new things! I told my friend JULIE to try this with her youngest daughter because I think the perspective is so so so fun "looking down" seeing the head in clear focus and the rest of the body in the depth of field.













I also did this photo when I stood right up against the lights to my left with the camera on tripod right in front of me. I love the half light, half dark look:













Unfortunately this blog is turning out to be a tribute to myself while I try to find willing family & friends to pose for me for practice. The good news is I'm slowly getting people interested in being my models so soon you'll see other faces!

The Many Faces of Jen

Well I had fun tonight...by myself! I was bored so you know when I get bored I turn to self portraits. Well this time I decided to have lots of fun with them and not be all serious.

I laughed, I made funny faces, I jumed up in the air, I jumped into the photo, swung my hair around all crazy, took some serious ones, and tried some new angles with the tripod. I had fun just being silly...

After I while I realized I had developed a "series" of faces...so I went with it and made as many as I could think of. I ended up with 30. So, I came back into my office and made a composite of all 30 faces and called it "The Many Faces of Jen."

It has no purpose at all except for FUN...and fun I had...if you can't tell:

(click to view very large)


I did take some serious ones. I made the tripod as TALL as I could get it and had the camera pointing down at me. I turned my head all different angles and this is the first one I edited. This is exactly how it was taken (landscape) with my head tilted to the side looking upwards into the camera lens on the tallest tripod setting:



Converted to a Dark B&W:



And a little LOMO...



And a session would not be complete without a kiss (well it was really a "sniff") from Lucas aka "Silks" (I don't know why my face was blown out here but who cares....)

Be Prepared...There's A Whole Lot-a Me

It was one of those days... This is me (again). Wish I wasn't lacking people to photograph.

Not a happy-face session as you can tell but that's what I was going for.

The eye was taken indoors with natural light. The rest were taken outside in the direct sunlight. Normally I wouldn't want the blown highlights but for this self-portrait session I wanted it. You don't always have to follow the "rules" to make a statement.









Black & White with DARK levels:

My Favorite Model...Ummm...Make That One of My Only Models....Me Again

Today we had lots-o-snow so I worked from home until my company closed. I was so bored that I went outside and shot some macro photos of the snow and water droplets and that didn't last long because of the freezing rain that was falling (see post below for the snow shots).

So, what else is there to do when you're bored? I decided I would take photos of my favorite model...hmm....well one of my FEW models....ME.

If you're not sick of seeing my "mug" yet...here is what I experimened with today...

It's hard to get a great focus on the eye when you're doing self portrais but the more practice I have the more I'm getting better at it.

These are all taken with Natural lighting from my window (first time trying this indoors):









I call this DARKNESS

Color:


B&W: