Taking Selfies by Reading Lamp

Recently, I’ve been run off my feet. Why? Reorganising my marketing, my point of view about how I make a living…you know, 20 percent photography, 80 percent business.

I took time out, late at night. I wanted to take a damned photo, anything. I tried taking a shot of my cat, Stubbs. She is beautiful, always wants to hang around with me, sometimes she won’t leave me alone. But when I want something, she refuses to play the game.

She’s persistent with want, if she wants my lap, then she gets it. If I want her to help me out, she doesn’t want to. Cats.

So, I set up the reading lamp, and decided to at least take a shot of myself. I like things Noir, dark, and mysterious. It creates not only moody feelings, it creates room for thought in the viewer.

I often have an idea for a photo in mind. Something I’ve seen, or a fragment of a conversation, might prompt an idea for a scene. These things tend to be film-like moments that pop into my head. So, I try them out, make sketches, set up a basic composition — rearrange the room to fit the scene.

I like to think of these types of shots as sketches. That’s exactly what they are; the lighting should give me thoughts and ideas about where the shadow should fall, where I want light. I don’t care, at this time, whether the light is “quality” or whether its source is a 1000 bucks worth of speed-light with a big label on the side of it. I do care about composition, basic colour grades, what works, and most of all, I love the mistakes that tell me how to develop my ideas.

Mistakes, are little helpers that show you the way. Don’t criticize them, read them for what they tell you. That’s how I do it.

I like the mood in the shot. And even though I like the person in the shot, me, I do have a problem with the vain act of taking self portraits. I know It helps me get better at photography, and portraits, but it also means that I’m going to have to pull a happy face, without looking like a poser. LOl.

The lighting caused a lot of “swirl” to appear in the photo. It’s a standing lamp that I keep parked at the end of the room. I seldom use it, but it has an adjustable lamp attached that I can twist and turn towards an object. Useful for moments of inspiration — and dragging out my key light, then a backlight, and a further light to touch up the top of my head, would entail too much detail in the set for what is a sketch.

Finally, I ended up with what you see. Me sitting at a table in a swirl of light, maybe it reminds us of a graphic novel, a touch more yellow ochre and my skin tone could’ve gone in the direction of two-tone graphic novel detective, bring in some heavy dark lines to punch up the features, and I’d be a Private Detective waiting for my next client to enter my office. Sam Spade waiting for Hedy Lamar to walk into his life.

That’s me done for today, I have to get back to marketing and sales. Trying to figure out how to meet new clients.

Thanks for reading, I hope you like the selfie.

Sean

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