The most recent lesson in my photography class is about portraits. I wish I’d had the information when I took the “new James Dean” headshots a few weeks ago and when I took the photos of baby Faith and her brother Matt last week. I know the information will help in my future attempts at portraiture. Our assignment for this lesson was to enlist a friend or family member to sit for portraits and take lots of them. I’m thinking, “been there, done that.” It is way too soon for me to jump back into taking portraits. The instructor commented that at times she has taken as many as 50 shots in a session. Well, that doesn’t hold a candle to the 613 I took last week of Faith and Matt. An optional assignment was self portraits. So, I decided to take up that challenge instead. I took a total of 36 photos in my session today; one of the tape I placed on the backdrop to center the lens; 3 of my hand for focusing; 6 of nothing when the camera decided on its own not to set an f/stop; 6 of my cheek, chin, shoulder, or hair when I changed the focal length; and 11 completely out of focus. The remaining 9 were marginal at best, but I did manage to get my eyes in perfect focus in one of them, despite the challenges of focusing the camera on eyes that are absent because the photographer is the subject. One thought occurs to me about that: I could hang a plumb bob from the ceiling positioned exactly where my eyes are going to be. But that’s for another time.
The problem with the only photo with perfectly in focus eyes is that the photo is overexposed. But I liked the color of my eyes and if you look closely, you can see my contact lenses floating on my eyeballs; one tinted slightly blue and one tinted slightly green so I can tell them apart. The problem is I can never remember which is which.
52mm focal length
ISO 500
f/4.8
1/10
Cropped