Seeing Yourself
For the last day of 2005 I decided to try to get at least 1 good self-portrait. I often have a hard time taking photos of myself. I am very critical of my photos of other people but even more so of images with me in them.
In my frequent viewing of flickr I have become a fan of 2 people who have developed a good style of depicting themselves in photos. One of them is a single mother in Iceland, Rebekka. It seems she is pretty much an online celebrity on flickr and has quite a large following. Take a look at some of the photos she's taken of herself. Another I have recently started watching is an Italian man Paulo, who goes by Tsunami Notes. He has a great rough look about him, makes me think of Jean Reno. Often has a cigarette in his hand with smoke going across his face. Take a look at some of the photos he's taken of himself.
I ended up posting 2 self-portraits that I thought were good enough. I don't normally smoke, but I like how the cigarette looks in photos so I tried one with a cigarette out on my balcony. The light was getting pretty low but I liked how the setting sunlight was coming from behind. I took a lot more shots than I wanted to in getting this one. At first I thought about just trashing all of them as I often do when trying self-portraits. But I left them for awhile and came back and decided this one was good enough even though its slightly blurred due to the longer exposure needed with the low light. It was shot on a tripod with a cable release.
Before I knew that I was going to even use one of the cigarette ones I tried a few others of myself in my bathroom mirror. I liked the way the wild hair looked. I had a black hooded sweatshirt on and it reminded me of Jake Gyllenhaal from Donnie Darko. I decided to play the song "Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen while taking the photo. That song can be heard at the beginning of the film. I wanted it to be kind of devious looking like Donnie's face. I was holding the camera just below the frame at my chest. I had an external flash bouncing off of the wall to the left side of the frame, I wanted it to have a harsh contrast with no light coming from the ride side of the frame. I was also happy with the hair in this final one because it reminds me of the way the younger Bob Dylan's hair looks after having recently watched "No Direction Home" again recently.
So these are what came out this time. I feel I can definitely do better next time, but I was happy to come out with 2 that passed my criticism level. I sent a message to Paulo thanking him for the inspiration and he was kind enough to respond. Its interesting to me to see the contrast in the 2 images. I think the one with the cigarette makes me look really old and I look younger in the other one. It seems a bit conceited to take photos of yourself, but I think its a good excercise.