Taking self portraits is difficult for me, in a sense that I’m not being comfortable in front of the camera.
I actually don’t have many photos with me being on them, and none of them are decent enough to call them successful at any means. So, I have to do something if I want my children to remember what I was like when they grow up.
I took this selfie-avatar recently. It was just a few minutes job and it turned down that it was the best portrait I have of me, actually. I kept it simple, just face and somewhat pleasant ready-to-talk-with-you kind of expression. It really was intended to be an avatar, for the internet look. I took the color out because that’s a screamy yellow wall behind me, my hair is red, my shirt is red and light is not that good.
Starting this blog also meant that I needed some photos for the home page of this blog. I needed to present myself in relation to this blog and its main themes, Misophonia and Photography.
My thinking process was like this. The title of the blog is Sounds of a shutter. (I’l just copy explanation I wrote on Sounds of Shutter page why I named it that way.)
….”Sounds are clear enough but a shutter can be interpreted in few ways. It can be a camera shutter but it also can be a window shutter, door shutter or else.
With the sounds of shutter you can hear that exciting sound every time you press a camera shutter and I can hear it too.
Just, for me, on the other hand, there is an impossible desire to close all other shutters available in order to stop some sounds come to me.”
So I came up with this. There are me-part, photography-part, problems with some sounds-part photographs.
Washed out look is because I’m not comfortable in front of the camera. That way I don’t feel exposed so much, if that makes any sense to you.
It’s very difficult for me to come up with something in self portrait that will say “sounds go away”. I’m pretty much clueless when it comes to a nice interpretation of my sounds problem. All I can think off are dark images and I didn’t want to present myself with something dark, that will come a bit later.
With the photo above, with the finger in one ear, I tried to say that shutting down those sounds is not possible. I can try to ignore them but I’ll hear them no matter what. That’s why I didn’t put the finger in the other ear.
Just to add, for posing.
It’s not easy to pose with fingers in ears 
really. I have to think how to place my hands because they will be, in most poses closer to the lens then my head and for that reason bigger and dominant.
I’m also limited with the time available and places I can go to shoot these days. I work full time, have 2 children (1.5 and 3 years old) and just small amount of time on weekends when I can take pictures, in home, while my children sleeping Good thing is that I have a nice empty room for self portraits.
Have to mention, I’m not that creative to have bunch of ideas right away…but I decided to take selfies often, with various themes and tasks, to work on my creativity and to became more comfortable in front of the camera.
This all is sort of a big challenge for me and it’s much easier if someone else is the subject.
2 Responses to “Self portraits”
When will I get some photos?
as soon as you come to me :*