Self Portraits

Self Portrait/Underwater I

Today's post makes me nervous.

I did these self portraits as part of an online class taught by Susannah Conway. The nervy part is that I am actually counting this photoshoot as my creativity in my 100 days challenge. I am actually saying that my photography is art. Hello, insecurities. Did I ever tell you that my father was a photographer?

I consider myself an amateur photographer. It's a hobby. And that means something to a woman who is trying to turn all her loves into a profession of one sort or another. But photography I consider a tool for other things. Or something fun. Play.

But here I am counting it as art.

Art. Capital "A".

Self Portrait/This Morning Before Work

Although, here's another question. How many pieces of art do I count it as? I took maybe 40 photos. Edited it down to maybe 25. Of those, I really like 12 or so.

How many do I count as this project? One for the shoot? All of the photos? Or only my most favorite? Maybe I should try printing them out and pick that way.

Self Portrait/Breathe Out

The first one is definitely one of my favorites, but this one here is really growing on me.

Self Portrait/Almost (not) There

And I really love this one, too. I don't care if it's not a technically "good" photo and it's way over exposed. I like the fading away quality. I like the glowy misty look. Once upon a time I would have had to sit in a dark room with my gels and chemicals, my red light, my enlarger, and I would have had to futz around to get the same effect. Today, I sit in my living room watching a violent thunderstorm rage across Michigan via doppler radar, and click a little computer button, switching exposure, contrast, tint and saturation. And if I don't like the way it looks, I keep sliding the buttons until I get the gasp effect. That's when I take an indrawn breath because something in that photo grabs something deep inside of me and pulls it out. I don't know what it is, but it's the thing I look for when I am editing pictures. Those are the keepers.

I'm going to go back over those photos again, and see where I find the gasp effect. It's hard now, because the first impression has already been made. But let's see if there's anything still there. Those are the ones I'm going to count as entries in my 100 in 100 days creative challenge, although I feel like photography is cheating. It's really not. So I'm going to knock that off.