Self-Portrait – Part I
“If you do what you did yesterday, you will get what you got yesterday.”
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To be honest, I’ve been thinking about how to get better with my photography. The day I started taking outdoor photography was a big turning point. I went out of my comfort zone. I was feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of using the sun as my light source. However, after a few shoots, I felt quite nervous because all of my photos turned out quite similar to each other. Perhaps a different model, perhaps a different location but they still give off this familiar vibe and it gradually bored me. It’s terrifying. I know that I’ve hit that peak of my knowledge/skill again. What can I do to improve? What can I do to create something with a different vibe next time? What is it that I haven’t done before?
Remember how I talked a lot about location in previous shoots? Yeah this time, I went ‘F*** it, I’m gonna shoot in my garage.’
So I built my home studio.
I’ve done quite a lot of studio photography when I was in school before. Yet this time it’s different. I don’t have the luxury of expensive equipment and lenses from school like before. All I got were my Canon 7D, a 50mm f/1.8 lens, a cheap Younguo Flash, an umbrella and the backdrop kit. Everything is pretty affordable.
One day, I went home from work. All tired but this desire to take photos is burning inside. No model/friends were available on such short notice so I decided to do a self-portrait session. I haven’t done that before. Mostly I had somebody else did the work.
I bought this dark muslin backdrop sometimes ago and decided to use it for the first time to see how good it was. I like it a lot. I think I will get some more later in the future.
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1/ This is a pretty simple portrait one just to see how the lighting is. Again, it’s too simple that it’s boring.
2-4/ This is when it gets more interesting. I bought these fake plastic flower at Value Village for…$1.50 a few months ago for a shoot with Ashley. Guess what, just hold it up close right in front of the lens, you will get this bokeh/blurry abstract shapes which adds a lot of dynamic to the photos. I was doing all of this by myself, imagine the awkward pose when you have to extend your right arm as far as you can to reach the camera while the rest of your body has to stay as natural as possible.
5/ My sister got home from work and found me in the garage doing weird poses. I asked her to join. See how the blurry flowers create this nice vignette around her?
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Next time, if you feel like your photos are plain and needs something, just pick up some random props that you can find and hold them up in front of your lens. It doesn’t have to be flowers either, it can be anything. Have fun experiment! If you learn something else with it, please do share!!!! Sharing is caring!
That’s it for this post. There’s part II coming up. I will talk more about the lighting and my studio setup in the next post.