Did the exercise provided to try to get a better understanding of who I am. Having done similar things before and standard psychological testing like Myers-Briggs there we not surprises. Although trying to write my obituary was difficult.
Initially I toyed with the idea of a portrait that included a my old military uniform hanging in the background, a large family protrait, lots of books, and a camera or two and associated equipment. I felt that would reflect a bit of my history. That is, the uniform reprsenting service in the Army as one phase of my life; the family portrait of raising a family and grand children; books to represent my second career as a Librarian and also my slight obscession with collecting book, especially photography book; and finally cameras representing the current phase of my life. I felt the shoot could be accomplished without too much difficulty I discounted it because I wanted it to be more a portrait of who I am now.
My second idea was to use the photographic books and magazines portion of the previous idea to represent me at present. I still collect book but now almost entirely those relating to photography and I subscribe to far too many magazines. I've seen a number of portraits where the subject has been immersed in or surrounded by their collections. I considered lying on the floor and being covered with books an magazines and the photograph being taken from above. Still not quite what I wanted to do. It just didn't feel like something I would do.
Finally, I decided to go with the book and magazine idea but this time they would be spread all over a table with me sitting behind them reading one, on portrait photography, with half of my face covered to represent my introvertedness. People laugh when I say I'm shy but in reality I have to make a real effort to meet new people. Once I know people I'm completely the opposite, very outgoing. While setting up the shot it became evident having material spread out on the table was not going to work. We, my assistant Lori and I, decided to stack up the books and magazines on two sides with a gap in the middle for me to be seen by the camera. Books were positioned with the titles towards the camera so while not fully seeing me the viewer could get a feel of who I was based on my reading material. The shot was done with the camera in landscape mode with two soft boxes one on either side of me and a tungsten light aimed at the background. Julian came in and pointed out the that light made me look very flat and the image was very symetrical. He suggested changing the camera to protrait, still with me slightly obscured by the pile of books on one side and holding one in front of my face as originally planned. We changed the lighting so we had one softbox aimed at me and a light on the background to eliminate shadows. The portrait oriented images and non symetrical came out much more pleasing and are the winners.
Looking at the landscape images I realised that my image was soft and slightly out of focus. I suspect it was due to autofocus focusing on the book I was holding rather than on my face. This was not evident using the camera preview screen. The portrait shots on the other hand were crisp and clear.
Self portrait 2
There is nobody that I'd rather be than myself. I have no heros, superstars, or graphic novel people that I'd like to be. When my childern were young, as a family, we would all dress up for Holloween and attend a community function. I always dreaded doing that but did it reluctantly. After much consideration I thought that I would be myself but with a twist. It would be the futrue me being on the cover of Time Magazine as a photographer winner of a major award, the Pulitzer Prize or man of the year. Props to use are hat, photographers vest and camera.
Reviewed many of the Time covers found on the web.
