Day 173

173/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I took a self portrait right before I started school this quarter, on Day 93. I figured another one was in order to cap things off. I try not to look back too often, but today seemed like a good day for a bit of reflection. 


It's crazy to think that I'm this far into my 365. My biggest fear coming into the new school year was this project, I was worried about being able to keep up with it, and I was even more worried about the quality of my pictures. On Day 93, I felt like I had to produce something amazing everyday. Now I'm coming to realize that a lot of the time, my pictures are a reflection of my days, and not everyday is going to be spectacular. Sometimes you just have to take care of some boring stuff, and that isn't always going to translate into an amazing image. It's more about taking those spectacular days that do come around and seizing them, and I feel like I've been able to do that for the most part. If I get a great picture on a banal day, that's just gravy. 


I think it's kind of funny that on Day 93 I didn't have a vision, I was just experimenting, and that's kind of what ended up happening today. I finally had some free time, and I felt like I needed to make something that I was proud of, or at least something that was outside of my usual range. I started looking for some inspiration and I came across the SNL photos that they use as bumpers. I think they are really well done and I like that style, so I tried to emulate it.


I usually use soft light on portraits, so I decided to go with all hard light in this one. I used two SB-24's as kick lights behind me, shooting at the side of my face. I gelled them, using some LumiQuest Gel Holders with some Plus Green gels. Then I set up a 430ex II as a key above the camera and slightly to the left. I put a Sto-Fen diffuser on it to soften it up a tad, but it's still pretty harsh. I just got the 430ex recently and I'm loving it, they pack a punch for how small they are, and the recycle time is super fast when you put some NiMh batteries in it. I had my lights dialed up pretty high and I used a fast shutter speed, so the background of the photo just went black. Then I removed that in photoshop and added a solid color. The post process was a mix between playing with the colors and blending in a duplicate layer with a high pass filter, it's something you kind of have to do to taste, you could take this process in a million different directions. The big thing I realized is that my hair is long and kind of frizzy, so photoshopping became super tedious. It's not as clean as I would have liked it, but I like the overall look of the image and it's something I could definitely go to again with the right model. 


Today was all about playing around, and I spent a lot of time tweaking things. It was one of those days where I feel like I learned something, so I'm happy with it. Hopefully I'll get to try it again soon on someone who is actually good in front of a camera, because I absolutely HATE being a model!