Photo 365: 05.18.11 – 05.24.11

Today I thought I would do something just a bit different. I’m going to show you the progression of how I get my daily shot. First of all, I choose a location and concept. I typically like to shoot where there is a lot of light but obviously that can’t always happen but in this case, I chose to be by the window in my studio. I knew I would get good light here especially because it was in the afternoon when I took this shot. I wanted it to look like I had been working at my desk and paused for a picture. Which, isn’t what happened since it’s a self portrait and it’s all a setup, but that’s what I wanted it to portray.

Next, I got my gear together. I needed my camera (duh!) and my tripod. I also needed something to mark the place where I would end up so I would have something to focus on. Here is the first shot where I am testing the light after I got my settings where I thought they should go.

50mm, 200 ISO, f/3.5, 1/60

You can see that it is a bit dark so for the next shot I lightened it a bit. Also, I’m focused on the closet doors which is not what I want to be sharp. So, I break out my stand in – a plastic bottle.

50mm, ISO 200, f/3.5, 1/50

Ahh… that’s better. I lightened it up just a tad and placed the bottle in the spot where I would be so I could have something to focus on. I do this a lot for my self portrait shots and it seems to work pretty good for me. Sometimes it is harder to accomplish than others but thankfully, this time it worked :)

From here on out, all the settings are the same so I won’t bore you with those details. Here is how the shot plays out: I set up my plastic bottle and focus on it. Then, I set the camera on self timer and make my way over to my desk chair. I put my face on the same plane as the bottle so I will be in focus, then I remove the bottle from the frame. Then the self timer goes off. Thankfully I have 10 seconds to get all of that done :) In this shot, I didn’t like that my head wasn’t showing so I went back to reset.

I decided to change from landscape to portrait. I reset up my camera, put the bottle back on the desk to focus and set the self timer. After I took this shot, I decided to try one where I was looking at the camera because I wasn’t super excited about this shot. Here we go again :)

Yay! We have success! I liked this shot better and so I called it a day.

The process I just showed you is probably an average day. Some days it can take me a bunch of tries to get something I am happy with and sometimes it just flows naturally and easily. You should be glad I didn’t do this break down on a day where I took 20-30 shots before I got the right one :) Sometimes, I will take multiple pictures and choose one of the first ones I shot. I just never know how it will turn out. And that is part of the fun!

If you so desire, let me know what you think about this post. I can do more of this type in the future if anyone is interested!

Want to see more Photo 365? Check out all of the posts here. Enjoy your Wednesday!!