Project 52: Self-Portraits: Challenge Week

On Monday, I opened an email from Digital Photography School informing me that they are having a self-portrait challenge this week hosted by self-portrait photographer, Anna Gay.

I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a photography slump lately, so I embraced the challenge and decided to participate!

Props

The first of three challenges was PROPS. The article prompted me to find something I enjoy and suggested the prop could be the focal point of the photo. Immediately I thought of grabbing my kids’ toys and acting out something I do with them all the time: “fixing” a ride-on toy with their play tools. To make the shot more playful, I put my hair in pigtails.

I knew I wanted a shallow depth of field where the focus was on the toy hammer, so I used my 50mm lens. I set the aperture to its widest setting: f/1.8 and used ISO 400 because I was inside, but it wasn’t especially dark. I adjusted the shutter speed until the light meter was slightly overexposed, which happened to be 1/80.

In order to make sure I was as out-of-focus as possible, I scooted back as far behind the ride-on toy as I could while still being able to reach the toy to “hammer” it.

You can hover over the image below to view the SOOC.

As usual, even though I pointed my camera at the exact spot I wanted to meter and I overexposed (according to the light meter) the shot came out slight underexposed. I used to think spot metering was the way to go, but now I’m not so sure. I changed my settings to center-weighted metering. The other option is matrix. You can check your camera manual to see how to change your settings. Here’s what the different light metering options do:

1. Matrix: The light meter will take the entire viewfinder area into consideration when calculating correct exposure.
2. Center-Weighted: The light meter primarily measures the center of the viewfinder when calculating exposure. The outer edges of the viewfinder are taken into consideration at a lower weight.
3. Spot Metering: The light meter will only measure the very center of the viewfinder when calculating correct exposure.

We’ll see how well this change works!

Light

I cringed when I read that the second challenge was LIGHT. As mentioned above, my ability to meter light is kind of impaired. I understand the basics of capturing light because that’s what photography is all about, however achieving specific effects utilizing light is incredibly intimidating to me.

One of Ashley’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday items for this week is “Give Me Flowers” so I thought I’d try out an idea to kill two birds with one stone. I’d hold out a bunch of flowers and shoot myself looking up from a low perspective, facing the sun to get some sun flare or haze. Again I wanted the flowers to be in focus with my face completely out of focus in the background.

Unfortunately the morning was partly cloudy and combined with the time of day, the shot I was trying for may not have been possible. I did get the shot I described, but since there’s no sunny goodness involved, I’ll save it for what I hope to be my second Scavenger Hunt Sunday post!

When I decided sun flare wasn’t going to work, I switched my focus to bokeh. I think I succeeded in that regard, but I’m not sure how well these self-portraits represent light. I added some textures to these shots just to play around. You can view the SOOC shots for both by hovering over the images below.

Several hours later an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in and it poured. I made several attempts at shots outside (with my camera inside or under the awning). There was a cool reflective surface from all the rain on the concrete of our back patio and I wanted to try a shot from high above that would show me and my reflection. My tripod wouldn’t go up high enough and there was nothing to put the tripod atop. I realized as my kids were helping protesting me putting it away that I didn’t extend the legs as far as I could have and I probably could’ve gotten that shot. Something to do next time it rains.

My next thought was a “longingly looking out a rainy window” shot. I intended to get my reflection in the window, but was pleasantly surprised to see that the reflection of my face kind of looks like a different expression. I applied some black and white adjustment layers to bring out some contrast and reduce the saturation.

None of the window shots were really going the way I’d hoped, so my last attempt was to set up opposite the window so the light would fall on me. I angled myself to get part of my face in shadows so the lighting would have some depth. Ultimately I don’t think I angled myself far enough. I converted this one to black and white because it seemed to be more about the lighting this way.

For both of these shots I used a more narrow aperture (f/4.5 above, f/3.2 below) but since it was so dark in the room, I didn’t want to raise the value much more than that. I also used ISO 800 because there was next to no light coming through the window.

As usual, you can hover over the shot above to view its SOOC

Challenge Yourself!

I wasn’t expecting a photography challenge this week, but I’m glad I joined in! I’ve been meeting all sorts of talented individuals also participating!

I can also feel my creative muscles being stretched and practice is the only way to improve. I can’t wait to see what Anna has in store for us on Friday!

What photographic challenges have you tackled lately and what did you learn? Please let me know in the comments or leave a link!