Here's the weekly update of my project to take a unique self portrait every day this year.
This second week has really made it clear to me how huge this commitment is! As I usually run out of time every day, I've been doing the portraits at 10 or 11 pm. It definitely has worn down some of my resistance to picking up a camera that has built up with a long absence from photography.
Day 8 Finally daylight
But never one to do anything easy, I darkened the room, sat in my meditation chair and pulled my Pinhole-holga-polaroid contraption close. I then focused on my breathing for 25 minutes.
You always knew I was an alien.The camera for this was a Chinese Holga medium format camera that I ripped the lens off of and replaced with a pinhole. It was taken with a polaroid back (which cost 4x what the camera cost)The film is interesting in that it requires you to sponge on acoater/lacquer to preserve it. Whew done before 3pm. One thing that was interesting about this shot was that I darkened the room hoping it to be the right amount of light, and counting somewhat on serendipity. As I was meditating, the light changed coming from the roller shade, but I just breathed, experienced it, totally prepared to do something else later if it didn't work out.
Day 9
I started the day with another pinhole experiment. I opened the pinhole when I got into the shower, and closed it when I got out about 15 minutes later. Couldn't see more than a ghost, so I had to come up with something else.
I've reconnected with several old (as in since I started flickring) flickr friends through comments on the 365days project. Looking again at their photos, both old and new got me to dig out my spectra. My shower experiment with the pinholga didn't reveal enough of me, so I thought I'd try a different Polaroid.
A tip o' the hat to:
Day 10
Well, still in the shower mode, with the spectra. The light was nice, but I knew I was inside the minimum focus distance. I liked it enough anyway and didn't really have anything better. Well, there were a couple of other shower pics:
I kindof liked this, but as I had had several freak shots in a row, I rejected it as my daily selection.
And this one...
I thought was too goofy.
Day 11
I took a shot of my daughter washing her hair, and then double exposed myself on it (remember, these aren't digital, but polaroid instant film.) It turned out to have a lot of tension. Some people seem to find it creepy. Well, if you can't stir the pot a little, you aint no artist!
I have shot more than just self portraits as a result of this project. I took a single image of my daughter and worked it in photoshop to get this:
Which I was pleased with.
Day 12
It ws really late, as you can see from the monumental bags under my eyes. I shot this using my LCD monitor as a light source. The original was in color, and I hated how blotchy my skin looked. I've learned a few tricks about converting to black and white that give much better results than the automatic methods, and I came up with this dramatic pose.
Day 13
Gasho is a Zen gesture of gratitude. I can't seem to wipe the frown off my face lately, so I bow, and give way... a little
Day 14
another spectra double exposure, shirtless with side light. Cropped from the original.
WooHoo! only 50 more weeks to go.
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