A few day's ago, I read an article on a photographer that did a lot of self portraiture. Some of the photos they did were longer exposures, so the their faces were really, really blurry. I really like them though, it's playing with the idea of self and who we see ourselves as. I interpreted it that we are always changing, never are we static. There may be the general outline of us, but you can never pin point exactly who someone is.
So tonight, I just played with that idea, as well as just having a lot of fun with my flashlight. The first attempts were just in my room, with the lights on and about a .5s exposure. The photos were pretty decent, I definitely got the blurring effect I wanted. But they were flat and a little boring really. Something needed to happen with the lighting to make them more...me. I don't like flat lighting, there has to be some drama in things.
So what did I do? I turned out the lights, stopped down to f10 and 5 seconds, and then used my Maglite. I just pointed it at my face, and then moved it around during the 5 seconds. Nothing precise, just playing. The very first picture I took was the one I eventually settled on using tonight. For some reason, this ends up happening a lot. The first pictures you take end up having that "something" that makes them great.
For editing, I did exactly two things. Raise the clarity all the way. yay contrast! Then I took out the blacks and did the "modern" look. Keeping the contrast the same down until about zone 2 or 3, then not letting it get any darker. When I zones, I'm talking about zones of light brightness. Zone 0 is black, zone 10 is white. It's a way of helping to calculate exposure, but also talking about different tones.
Well I guess that's about it....quick post tonight. Enjoy
See you tomorrow!
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