Headshots: Attempt #1
Monday, August 17 2009
I haven’t participated in a real photo shoot in a long time. I’ve taken pictures during my travels over the summer, especially in Bermuda and Europe. But these weren’t what I’d consider serious photos where I gave any thought to light, proper exposure, etc… I should be doing that all of the time and I’m going to work on that.
But I needed a headshot.
I started another blog a few weeks ago, Scattered Breadcrumbs, which is about all things related to technology that interest me (instructional technology, gadgets, Web 2.0 tools, etc…). My new blog needed a good picture of me, but not the hold your camera out in front of you and cheese kind. It needed a photo with a bit more polish to it. I didn’t want to put on a suit and stand in front of a plain backdrop because that’s not the real me.
So I started researching photographers in the Delaware area that I like. There are several that I really admire and think they produce fantastic images. I could have gone to any one of them and gotten a much better image than what I can make right now. However, I chose to take my own for two main reasons.
- Cost. Honestly, it’s not in my budget to spend about $1,000 on a one-hour photo session with digital images from the shoot. I’d forgotten how expensive these things can be. Photographers seem to be pretty divided right now regarding those who offer digital images as part of a session, those who offer them for purchase (usually after you purchase prints), and those who don’t offer digital images at all. While I theoretically understand some of the reasons behind why this is, I simply do not need or want prints. Nor do I have $1k to drop on a headshot.
- I wanted to start taking real pictures again. Pictures that required me to think about light, proper exposure, etc… I’m not interested in taking pictures as a business right now but I would like to improve my skills. Who better to start on then myself?
So I drug my equipment outside this morning and spent about an hour and a half taking pictures in our backyard. I used my Canon 5d with my 50mm 1.8 lens, my Manfrotto tripod and the remote control Peter got me last Valentine’s day. I was using my flash (a Canon 580 EXII) but it quit working about 15 minutes into shooting. No idea why because it had a full battery and everything looked ok. I realized that I’m not exactly sure how to force the flash – i.e. make it flash despite it thinking I don’t need the light. That’s one of the first things I want to learn.
This is the first image I captured – it makes me laugh because despite the fact that I’m not smiling my trademark grin and the headphones from my Zune are trailing everywhere, it’s a pretty good representation of me.
I like the idea of this one, especially because it incorporates my beloved Mac iBook – despite not being a regular Mac user I will always have a soft spot in my heart for this laptop. I’m not thrilled with the fact that I cut my head off.
This was my second favorite of the session. If I had not cut off my boot (seems like I was always cutting one end of me off today!) and had nailed the focus (seems to be tack sharp on my knee and the laptop – how strange – but too soft on my face), it would have been my favorite image of the morning.
This image was one of the last pictures I took and it ended up being my favorite. It’s currently up on the About section of my Scattered Breadcrumbs site and is my Facebook profile picture too.
Full Disclosure: I took 121 images this morning. Some were accidental because I was taking two shots per click of the remote shutter for a while – I was hitting the wrong button, oops! Others were a bunch of test shots for lighting and also trying to figure out why the heck my flash wouldn’t fire. Out of the 121, I consider the last two I posted my best, but know that they have a long way to go before they are really good images. It felt good, really good, to be taking real pictures again.
