Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Don't underestimate self portraits

I briefly mentioned self-portraits previously.

Self Portrait 2:30am
Every self-portrait tells a story. When you do something awesome, take a self-portrait, when you do something lame take a self-portrait. The above photo is a perfect example. I flew home really late one night. My wife picked me up and when we got home to the door we realized she had locked us out. It was a rental and it was really late. We couldn't get keys from the landlord until the next day and we didn't want to pay a locksmith for a 2AM call. We were hungry and went to the grocery store for food. She was decidedly upset about it all. I laugh at the moment, she still cringes a bit inside.

We ended up sleeping at my sister-in-law's apartment, and were able to get the door open the next day.

The Brothers
Self portraits are a photo journal. For one family reunion my family went skiing. For most of the day we stuck together and had great fun. This photo was taken when we brothers decided we wanted to take a few runs down the "most difficult" chutes. I think it was the steepest stuff I've ever skied. We don't get to ski together often.

My Family on Cannon Beach
Share your personality. Hands down the most fun thing to do with my camera is kite aerial photography (or kap). I absolutely love it.

Express yourself. Just as writing is a free form of expression so is photography. A self-portrait is much like a personal diary. It is an expression of something internal. Self-portraits can be personal and special and they can be fun and playful. Please, please I ask you to take a look at these amazing self portraits by dcapfoto on flickr. You will not be disappointed.

And remember you don't have to take an amazing photo for your self-portrait to be amazing it all depends on your "self".

4 comments:

Minna Dyer said...

Thanks for the first shot. I am so glad we have it to remember that tiring night :)

Candice said...

Cool! Again, you inspire me. I have never thought of the self portrait as a journal entry of your life. The moment I saw your last entry about it, I took some of my own.

I would have thought that the skiing and kite pictures were my favorite, but when you write the 'why' behind the first photo, I love it for the history. I hate locking myself out, and I detest living in a place where I have to lock the door...but that is another story.

Shane D. said...

nice pictures

capturingtheride said...

One of my sister's friends (who is a student at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA) was doing a cool project last year: a self portrait a day for an entire year. I thought it was kinda a cool idea...it would force you to think of self portraiture in new ways, I think. Nice post, by the way! And fun photos!