Friday 31 August 2012

Now Me


The challenge for Beyond Layers, day 25 was self-portraits. Most people seemed to cringe at having their photos takes, with the notable exception of my new friend Michele, who seems to be an old friend of mine. ˆ__ˆ

For me I think it's something I got so used to in childhood that it's just something quite normal. My father was the one who photographed us, the whole family, wherever and whenever. So there are all these lovely black & white photos of my sister and me at play  or posing in new dresses (I think we used to be mostly dressed up identically or at least matchingly until I went to school). Later on, I have these colour photos (that have partially faded red) of the family, including me, posing at a landmark or sight when we drove around the country, visiting distant relatives or just touring around for a holiday. I don't like each and every photo taken of me, naturally, who would, but then, why should I? I'm quite used to seeing myself in photos, good and worse.

Really the only problem I've had is quite contrary and has everything to do with the kind of attitude the Beyonders share. Since most people outside my old family seem to abhor being photographed, I developed this shyness… You know, since everybody's saying how horrible it is to be photographed, it really must be that. I've felt quite silly and forward and self-centered and attention-seeking and what not for actually LIKING the thing. It has taken me all these years to gather enough courage to actually ask Better Half to take a picture of me every now and then.

Anyway, the real challenge for me in this self-portrait thing now was the already familiar fact that I don't have a working camera at the moment. It must be much easier to do it with a tripod and things, but one can't really put a phone on a tripod. I managed to take some rather nice shots with the phone held in hand, though, and then remembered that Mac has this program-thingy called Photo Booth - you just sit in front of the computer and have your Mac taking pictures of you with the in-built camera when you click the mouse! Did that, but the light in our study is not really optimal for photography. It would have been so much nicer to have an outdoor picture, too, in the pretty autumn light. And in a flash I realised that we do have the Mac Book, too, which I promptly took for a little walk outside. The pictures are naturally tiny, but I solved this by making a scrapbooking layout with the little pictures. The additional challenge for day 26 of using either one of the  text brushes Kim gave us or her texture I Am were both met here as well. A little creative thinking goes a long way! Here's me, at 50 years, 1 month and 3 days.

Not perfect but all me!

Resources:
- texture I Am by Kim Klassen
- texture Green Haven by Kerstin Frank
- text brush from brush set Affirmation by Kim Klassen
- template adapted from Photobooth by Just A Storyteller
- gradient Rivendell 02 by ElvenSword
- action CoffeeShop 2020 by Rita @ The Coffee Shop Blog
- font Blokletters Balpen by LeFly Fonts

1 comment:

  1. Pleased to meet you, Eija! I never thought of using PhotoBooth on my Mac. That's brilliant!
    What a surprise to see my name in your post! Yes, I think we're old friends. :-)

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