Saturday Selfie: Bright Light

I've been taking it quite easy lately, all I want to use my computer for is job hunting. I just can't sit looking at the screen for so long because I don't have a proper desk, and keeping it in my lap hurts my neck..So the blog has been getting the short end of the stick as it seems. .So have my daily pictures over at deviantArt, though I have still been taking them =)

In any case, this week over at Selfie Magic is all about light! I tried to do a little artistic, spotlight photo the other night, but the overhead lighting in our den is horrible, and the spotlight wasn't working well enough to use as the keylight... So it turned out rather blurry. I altered it a bit to kinda work with the blur, but I dunno, still not what I was really wanting...

But in my backlog of daily self portraits, I had this little gem sitting on the bed where I used the bedside light to really blow out the highlights but still keep a good exposure =) In addition to the one I selected for my daily shot, I had these two others that kinda played with the composition a little more.

These were pretty, but still with the challenge of "light" I would loved to have done so much more... But with not much space here, it takes a lot of work to get my studio lights out and even more effort to set up a backdrop without installing it on the walls... But I've done loads of self portraits taking advantage of them, so I figured I'd post them up over here! This has got to be one of my favorite aspects of doing daily self portraits, going back and looking over the past few years, seeing where I was and things I've done.

These first few are just examples of glorious backlighting courtesy of my studio lamps. I love the 'angel wings' on the first one, I got that effect by placing a slotted cover over the bulb of the lamp (had to be careful on that one, as it almost overheated haha) Then I have one of my favorite photos of my abs, and I only took like 3 or 4 shots that day! The umbrella used to diffuse the flash is barely visible in the back, I suppose I could have edited it out, but when I took the photo I had crashed my computer and didn't have photoshop, so I figure I'll just leave it as is...

 Then these next two are great examples of playing with light, but they're more significant to me for the stories behind them. The first one was actually taken the night I met my fiance, though we barely spoke to each other that night. I was kinda on a date with someone else, and he was kinda dating someone else as well =P It wasn't until a month or so later that we went on our first date. But he certainly made an impression on me! Photographically though, who knew that lightsabers made wonderful light sources!



 And this beach one, I just adore! Me and the muscle man love the beach, despite having something go wrong each time we go =P This time around he developed an eye problem that made him impossibly sensitive to the sun! Not the best time to be at the beach, but he toughed it out for a few afternoon shots with me on the sand, so long as I let him wear his dark sunglasses!

What a fun challenge this week, despite my not exactly following through with it... I had fun looking back at some of my favorite self portraits that had fun uses of light =D Maybe next week I'll get to execute the actual challenge a little better!