A Reason to Shoot Myself
Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 4:36PM It isn’t as bad as it sounds… harmless fun (self-portraits that is...). Istockphoto.com turns 10 on April 7th and they are asking their members to submit a headshot to build a gallery of the people who helped make it what it is today. From the forum thread on the topic:
Faces of iStock
To kick it all off we're creating a massive online gallery and we need your help. We want to see everyone out there involved in the iStock world: all you photographers, designers, illustrators, photo-retouchers, scrapbookers, video editors, musicians, Flash coders, marketing execs, iStock Inspectors, Steel Cagers, Australians, forum hanger-outers - everybody. And yes, you’ll get to see what we all look like as well.
So, I took the time and did a few self portraits of my own. I have a bunch of self-portrait headshots already, but why not take the opportunity to shoot a new quick one. But I had to do SOMETHING a little unique. I didn’t want to just do a “pretty face” pic. So, I used my motorcycle as a prop, and not just because I enjoy motorcycling, but because motorcycling is what caused me to adopt my online moniker: Motoed (pronounced: moto-Ed).
I narrowed the choice shots down to these few. I have a fav and my wife does as well. I’m curious to get the opinion of my audience as well. Which shots do you prefer? Add comments below, please.
A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
istockphoto, photography, portrait, self-portrait in All about me, Photography
Reader Comments (7)
I like the one in the MBW shirt. I think the ones in your helmet squish your face and make you look older than you are
Great shots Ed - hard to choose one - but I'll go with A
Funny, I thought the helmeted close-up was better because you got some purdy eyes. :-) It's a much more focused image, and the suggestion of "Moto" (with the helmet framing your face) doesn't overshadow the "Ed".
C: sophisticated, sporty and mysterious rolled together.
A or C, A or C, hmm...
Well, it's supposed to be a head shot so I'd go with C.
Ed,
I agree about your helmet, "Hey bus driver, open the door."
Perhaps it's just my style, but I think I would have like some of these better if you increased your key-output, and darkened the background. But, I digress, you have been doing this longer than I have.
-Howie
Howie...Thanks. This was actually "MOSTLY" natural lit. I was kinda going for the blown-out backlit background and decent exposure on the face. I did use on-camera flash set at manual, full, bounced into the back of the garage for a little bit of natural fill.
The close up helmet shot was bounced into a white board just off to camera left. It wasn't a white photo board though... it was a white box for a shelving unit. So it had some printing on it that broke up the big solid white catchlight in the eye and it looks a little more natural then just a big solid reflection.
I might have to drag out the Alien Bees and do this again and see just HOW many different looks I can with a single scene.