“There’s just something unsettling about studying your reflection. It’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with your face or of being embarrassed by your vanity. Maybe it’s that when you gaze into your own eyes, you don’t see what you wish to see—or glimpse something that you wish weren’t there.”
Dean Koontz, Deeply Odd
I again called upon the older guy to model for me as I played with some exposure and lighting effects. Shot this in the afternoon with window light only. I wanted to use the camera and flash to darken the background. I set the camera on manual at f2.0 and a shuter speed of 400th of a second. This darkened the background while I used off camera flash, set on manual, and powered at 1/64th to light only my face. It is through using myself I learn about flash and how to play with it. It takes longer to experiment. After I feel comfortable I can then use a different model. Black and white conversion was done in Silver Efex Pro.
4 Comments
Cedric Canard
I need to work a little more on self portraits myself, it’s obviously paying off for you Monte.
As for the quote, that’s an interesting one. I once had a martial arts teacher who said: “Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, is this the face I was born with?” Sometimes he would change the question to: “what face did I have before I was born?”. I can’t say I have answered either question nor can I explain what he was on about exactly but ever since then I cannot look at myself in a mirror and not have these questions pass through my head 🙂
Monte Stevens
Self-portraits can be fun to do but they are time consuming. There is a young woman who has a book about her self-portraits and she’s done a decent job.
I do not look in the mirror to admire myself but just to check that my hair is combed and there’s nothing in my teeth.
Tom Dills
It’s good to have a cooperative model, Monte. It looks like he follows direction well.
Monte Stevens
He can be stubborn at times.