If you are a freelance writer or photographer chances are you have been asked, at some point, to submit a head shot with your work. I can tell you when I started blogging my first investment was hiring a professional to take my photo. Hands down best money spent. I have used that head shot for almost three years now and sadly I’ll admit I’m looking a bit more how shall we say it? mature? these days. I really resisted going with a formal head-shot because that’s just not who I am. I am creative and some times a free spirit and to me there is nothing authentic about an awkwardly posed, tightly cropped portrait. What started as a mission to get a good head shot, turned into yet another quest to capture the fleeting self.
I decided to start with the Polaroid Spectra 1200. I love the Spectra for a few reasons, you can manually control the flash and with the timed exposure button, you can achieve a double exposure. Something I learned from our very own muse Meghan (below) last year at photo camp. Check out Debra’s MM post about double exposure.
I placed the Spectra on a tripod and found a nice East facing window and burned through a pack of expired Spectra film faster than you can say click and whrrl.
Not really happy about what I was getting I moved on to something a little more reliable, black and white Impossible Film PZ600
A few more and I decided they were still just flat, next up Impossible Project PX 680 Cool – now this stuff worked much better, especially for the double exposures.
A few more shots outside and I was not getting anywhere near what I had set out to do. Forget the head shot now I really wanted a photo to keep to remind me of this crossroad I had reached in life, my mid-forties. That is an entirely new post for a different day. For now I will continue to keep at this knowing that the actual practice of taking the self portrait is more life changing than the portrait itself.
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” – Frida Kahlo
Lindsey aka modchik
I love the way you approached this Lindsey and the end result is absolutely stunning!
Oh, wow, I love that last image. I consider myself “sometimes a free-spirit”, the realities of motherhood can sometimes zap that lightheartedness.
What a journey it ended up being to capture yourself. Your end result is just perfect!
Love this post, Lindsey. Thanks for sharing your process and allowing us to see that self-portraits can be frustrating and time-consuming. But that we learn so much in the process. Love that last image, too. xoxo
i love your process and these shots are fabulous–that last one is so incredible!
beautiful shots, Lindsey.
Love this, Lindsey. I am so with you in feeling that we get somewhere with just the process of self portraiture, regardless of how we feel about the end result of a particular session or shoot. Also, these photos are really beautiful.
a whole bunch of goodness here lindsey! and, as has been said, love that last shot 🙂
Lindsey, thanks for sharing your process. The final outcome is marvelous, a culmination of all that went before and a wonderful representation of the creative, free spirit side of your personality that you wanted to express!
these are all fantastic! love seeing your experiments with all the different kinds of film. that last shot…to die for! xo
Makes me want to do that RIGHT NOW! I love that Frida Kahlo quote, by the way.
brilliant post – words and images. i know this process of shooting, seeing if “you” are in the frame, adjusting and shooting some more, and you illustrated it so beautifully.
and as for the last shot – showing off so many facets of you as it does – it’s really, really wonderful!
Fantastic. I am going to have to try timing some shots with my Polaroid 1200, absolutely brilliant.
I absolutely love the final image!