Selfie Challenge!!!! #3

Imagine that Voice-Over-Guy that does work for the Movies...

The Self Portrait Challenge.... One Man.... One Woman... taking photos of themselves....

Okay... that's enough of that.



Last Week, Carolina posted a lovely mirror shot, per my request. You can see the results of that photo here: Self Portrait Challenge, Round 2

Her Challenge in response to mine? "A photo booth type series with a different emotion in each photo."

Brutal. Showing emotions is really hard for me... Being happy is great and all, but showing other emotions honestly, and in public, can be really hard. It reminded me of the Japanese and how they have one "mask" that they put on at work and something else when they're being truthful... It's called Honne and Tatemae. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae


Anyway, with that in mind, and the fake emotions we put on, here is this week's submission:

Emote

Nerd Alert: Shot with my Android using Vignette with the "Holga" filter. Arranged in GIMP 2.6

Carolina, This week your challenge is to use off camera flash... but not just FOR your photo.... I want the Off Camera Flash to be IN the photo. ;-) (I'm sure you have a flash laying around somewhere....)

Self Portrait Challenge #2

Hello All 4 of you!

If there's one thing that I love (I mean, one thing of many) it's receiving a challenge from someone... If there's something that I love more, it's challenging someone else!

Continuing from last week, +Carolina Yocom and I have been challenging each other once a week to a themed self portrait. I asked her to make her shot with light bouncing at least once. She did exceedingly well and made the shot much more subtle than I anticipated.

Read her post HERE.

This week, her challenge to me was a self portrait "with very shallow depth of field, focus being somewhere other than them thar eyeballs."

I'm hoping I took things in a direction she didn't expect:

"Monocle" 

Nerd Alert: Pentax K10, Kiron 35-135/3.5 Macro, AlienBee 400 @1/8th. 1/125, f/3.5, ISO100 (I think)

My dear Carolina, this next week's challenge to you is this: Self Portrait using a mirror. Have fun!

Self Portraits (are awkward)

Self Portraits always make me nervous... not that I'm not comfortable in front of the camera... not because I don't like the way I look... but because I don't know what expression to make. I believe that in this regard, women must have it easier: Short of doing "the duck face" ladies score an easy win when it comes to selfies. (btw, whomever invented the duck face should be promptly beaten with a stick.) A fantastic example of successful selfies is anything that +Carolina Yocom makes. For me, I feel that I end up being way too serious or completely loony with my intangibly dim-witted smile. Alas... I usually go for "serious."

Today, I was playing with lighting setups a bit and I, of course, was standing by and ready to be my own subject. I always try new lighting setups in the privacy of my own company (I tend to avoid complete humiliation that way) and today I decided to find a use for that blue gel that comes in our strobist kits. You know which blue.... the one that makes even the most boring science lab so interesting you want to jump into the photo and help the chemist mix something in that beaker... But I've been watching more and more film noir lately... I have that "look" in my head. Granted: If I were to completely dump digital and go for this look I'd probably be shunned by the entire photography community again... (what do you mean 'you don't use photoshop but you shoot digital?') Hmm... Maybe that's my next ticket... Ahem.

Anyway I have two treatments of the same photo today and I can't decide which one is "better" so I'm putting it to ya'll.


A)

B)

PS- Yes I love HopeCon, Bettie Page, and this IS my favorite shirt. So... there.

PPS- I treated these in the same way that I do most of my work... My blacks are common, whites are rare, and "black and white conversion" doesn't mean "desaturation."

A or B?

So today I'm going to pull a "Chase Jarvis." ((No, I'm not going to jump on a plane and ski backwards while trying to get some great photos of snowboarders flying through the air...))

Chase has these interesting posts where he shows two photos and then asks his audience which one they like better and why. Why is that fun? Well, when going through a crap-ton (yes, that's a technical term) of photos it's hard to decide which photos are going to be THE ones you show. In some cases, there's only ONE that makes it out to the public and only months and months later do the rest surface.

I had a recent photo session that where the sun was hidden behind the clouds and the sky was perfect.... for about 10 minutes. I had several photos that I liked, but these last two..... I just couldn't decide which one I liked better:


A)

B)

These were made only moments apart, but they look very different. Which would you pick and why?

Blogging for the sake of blogging

I recently read a post on my local photographers group Mile High Photographers about blogging and how many photos people post on their blogs. There were as many unique answers as there were photographers.

Some blogged 20-30 images while telling the narrative of the bridal party's day.
Others blogged 10 or so to tell their subject's story.

I usually blog 4 or less.

I can't exactly put a reason to why I blog so few photos but I really feel that this blog is for myself. Don't misunderstand me: I'm glad for all 4 of you that read this... but this blog is largely a place for my to put my thoughts to paper (proverbially). Half the time, I just need to get certain ideas out of my head and into some tangible form so I can sleep at night. My photo journal serves that exact purpose: I can't draw to save my life but getting those photo shoot ideas onto paper lets me sleep at night.

Anyway, I thought I might mention that I plan on doing a full month of free headshots. Yes: Free. Not really "Free Beer" ... more like "Free Speech." I need to get the word out in Denver that there's a new guy in town and I'm going to make as much noise as I can. I need to overwhelm the talent agents with "this Jeremy guy" and "the solid, consistent work" that I make. What better way to do than than to show up to coffee with them with a whole book that I've made of my work?

In any case, if you're in need of a good headshot let me know. I've seen some AWFUL headshots on facebook, model mayhem, and even realtor websites... Really, people... get some good work done.... You don't look like that in person...

Oh look... 4 photos blogged!  ;-)

Building a book & Having good teachers

Hey!

I finally fought my way through building a book: The same book I promised Zack Arias that I'd deliver to him this past May. I had the book printed by Kiss Albums. Here is the unboxing:


The little 4" book isn't big enough to send to anyone, but now that I know it'll look awesome I can send anyone the big one after I get the big one printed.

SO... Yeah: I know... I'm 6 months late on my promise. Why? I finished the book in February and was ready to send it to print when I realized that something didn't feel right. I had spent hours and weeks making this book something that Zack would approve of since his approval means SO much to me. I shot photos I thought he would find interesting. I composed using rule of thirds. I had both lit and natural light shots in it. I showed that I don't just show any photo I think is "okay"....

Then it hit me.

I made the book for Zack.... not for myself. My book lacked MY SOUL. I made the photos but I made them in a way that I didn't love in order to impress my teacher.

I tossed the entire book and started over.

So now that I've made the book for myself.... showing the work that I've not only done but the work I want to continue to do...... Zack is going to hate it. Meg (Zack's "better 7/8ths") is REALLY going to hate it. It's okay. At some point I'm going to have to pony up to the fact that a lot of people are going to hate my work and the only answer is to get used to it. But even if Zack hates it... it accurately shows where I'm at and where I'd like to go... It's more honest... and that's what all of my influences seem to find to be important:

Just in case you're reading this, Zack... YES. You're my Teacher and that title means more to me than I could explain in a blog post.... Maybe over coffee in the ATL.

Finally! My own Motorcycle!

Just a quicky this time:

I scoured Craigslist for weeks trying to find a bike that would meet my needs. I was prepared to buy a bike, then it'd get sold... then another... then another. Finally I found this gem!

She's a 1982 Yamaha XS400 Seca (XS400RJ). She might be 30 years old but only has 10K on her. She definitely needs some TLC, but I think it's a simple enough bike that I can learn quite a bit. 

Anyway, I'll post more pics as I get things fixed up, but the photo above is what she looked like just before I rode her home.