Self-Portrait Round Two February 8, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Photography, School, Thoughts , trackbackI started my classes this week at AAU, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.
For one of my first assignments, I had to take a self-portrait.
ANOTHER ONE. AS IN, CANNOT USE ANY SELF-PORTRAITS TAKEN MORE THAN SIX DAYS AGO.
UGH.
Couldn’t they just accept the self-portrait I took over the summer for another class? Heck, I look the same.
I kept hoping this assignment would just disappear into a black hole. Maybe we would be assigned a new assignment? Maybe my twin brother would magically become a TWIN SISTER and voila! I could photograph my identical twin!
So pathetic, I know.
Taking a self portrait is right up there with getting a root canal. UGH. I hate taking self -portraits, or heck, even just getting my own picture taken by someone else is just not on the top of my list. I really enjoy being behind the camera, not in front of it. I took several self-portraits this week. I wasn’t 100% happy with any of them, but that is more personal than it is technical. I’m like that client you can never please because they’re just not happy about the way they look in every picture. Nothing to do with the photographer, everything to do with the client.
I have issues.
I’m sure it’s because of the lovely extra pounds that just refuse to disappear, and other neuroses I have about myself of which I won’t go into a description. (See? I’m neurotic!) Photographs have a way of magnifying all the things you wish would just go away.
That being said, I did learn a few technical things from this experiment, and if nothing else, I know my equipment better this week than I did last.
This is what I came up with:
“Hello camera! Why aren’t you responding to my trigger? HELLO? Do you think I like to do this?”
Then there’s the “straight hair on me” = “drowned rat look.”
And this one where David mentioned I looked a little ticked off in this picture.
Not exactly the message I was trying to communicate.
I ended up submitting the second image. No word on how I did yet.
Please say this is the last self portrait assignment ever. PLEASE?!?! 
Comments»
I think you look gorgeous!
Oh, to look like the “drowned rat” would be just fine with me. Great pictures.
i love the second picture, gorgeous!
I think you look beautiful no matter which side of the camera you’re on.
And by the way, I miss you terribly.
You do NOT look like a drowned rat–you look gorgeous in all of them! I don’t think I’d like self-portraits much either but you are getting really good at them.
I meant to say on your most recent post that I LOVE Hannah’s hat and scarf.
You are amazing… you inspired me to try out a self portrait on my D90 and it is HARD, HARD, HARD! Holy cow!
I have always thought you were tremendously talented, gifted, etc. etc. but NOW you can add that you are an absolutely fantabulous photographer to it as well.
I’ll just go back and try my self-portraits again… and again… and again. If you ever see one on my web site I will have done thousands before that one!