Project 52: Self-Portraits: Jump

By
Lynda Giddens
– Fri May 6, 2011Posted in: P52: Self Portraits, Photography

A couple of weeks ago, I read Elena’s tips for jumping self-portraits in the Selfie Saturdays feature on her blog.

If you’ve been around here a while, you’ll know I continually link to Elena and whine about not participating in her self-portrait challenges due to lack of motivation being too busy an inability to be creative whatever reason.

03-14-11 - Project 52 Self Portrait Attempt 1My first attempt for my birthday self-portrait, Being Green was actually a jumping shot I’ve never shared before. It’s pictured to the right.

Surprisingly, without having the foggiest clue what I was doing, I followed most of Elena’s tips!

Having successfully jumped on camera exactly once before, I thought finally I had a Selfie Saturday in the bag. Surely I could jump on camera again!

The days passed by and my confidence shrank bit by bit. Not only is a jumping self-portrait full body, but any loose body parts (boobs, big belly, etc) have a mind of their own. For a girl of size like me, there is no way to take a flattering jumping self-portrait.

Inspiration Strikes

This morning I was on Pinterest adding shots to my Self-Portrait Inspiration Board and I happened across a link showing some Polaroids of a scene taken in front of the same scene with a digital camera at arm’s length. If that sounds confusing, it’ll make sense in a minute!

I’ve seen other photos like that on Flickr and think the style is really fun. I knew I wanted to do it for my jumping self-portrait because it would add a creative aspect to the shot while allowing me to hide a bit inside the Polaroid.

05-06-11 - Project 52 - Self-Portraits - Jump

Hover over the shot above for the SOOC and shot details.
(Want to learn the mouseover effect?)

Shoot #1

First, I needed to create the jumping image I’d use as my Polaroid.

With the ISO at 200, I selected f/9 for the aperture and metered against the sky to set the shutter speed (1/500). I selected the remote shutter with timer option and left it on autofocus, making sure my focus area was set to a position I was sure to be in.

At that point, much to my dismay, I learned I cannot control the timer length when the remote shutter is also selected. I went through all my camera menus twelve times and searched Google when I got back inside. I found a Flickr discussion confirming that with the Nikon D50, the self-timer length does not apply with the remote. That’s all shades of stupid crazy and I still don’t understand how that’s possible. I thought for sure when I did the first jumping picture that I’d used a longer self-timer option with the remote!

So instead, I set the lens to manually focus and used a stand-in to get my focus right.

I had the self-timer on 10 seconds and learned I have to wait until the split second before the last fast beep to jump. What a workout it was running back and forth between my camera and my spot while jumping in-between!

05-06-11 - Jump PolaroidFor the last several pictures of my shoot, I pulled over the kids’ sprinkler ball to use as a prop and tried to jump giving the appearance of flying or hopping over it.

I went back inside to immediately select and edit my shot. Metering against the sky was a good thing to do because I didn’t have to change my exposure at all!

In Photoshop I created a Polaroid-like template using a clipping mask and pasted my jumping shot into it. I printed it out and cut off the bottom to make it look like a true Polaroid.

Also, now that I think about it, I could have held up a white piece of paper the size of a Polaroid for shoot #2 using a clipping mask to add Shoot #1 in post-processing.

Shoot #2

This shot was so much easier and quicker. I set the aperture value to f/3.8 because I only wanted the Polaroid to be in focus. Again, I selected the shutter speed by metering against the sky (1/2500).

I held the shot out at arm’s length to take the picture, however in retrospect that was a silly way to do it. My arm was barely long enough to pass the lens’ minimum focus distance. Since my camera was on the tripod anyway, I should have used the remote. Luckily I was able to get the Polaroid in focus anyway.

Project 52: Self-Portraits

Project 52 Self-Portraits Button

Selfie Saturdays

Earlier this year I teamed up with Pepper of Pepper Scraps for a weekly self-portrait project. I love that we’re both in this together to support and encourage one another!

Project 52 is simply a self-imposed photography project where you vow to take a photo a week for a full year. Project 365 is too much for me and I hoped I’d be able to keep up with a weekly photo project. I chose self-portraits as a theme because it seemed silly to commit to a random photo per week. I’ve always liked taking self-portraits to document where I am in my life, but usually they are uncreative arm’s length shots.

My goal is to break out of my comfort zone photographically, but I still find myself slipping back to my old arm’s length ways too often. Elena’s Selfie Saturdays offers me the perfect chance to do this and I think I need to continue pushing myself to complete her challenges!

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