It’s been a while since I’ve turned the camera on myself, but today I joined Pinup Lifestyle and was looking for a good photo to put up for my profile. I call myself a photographer over there, so I wanted the picture to be a good one. I used one of my old favorites from long ago, but that got me to thinking about some other things to experiment with.
Tonight I closed myself in a dark room with my camera (on tripod, set to ‘bulb’), remote shutter release (operated with my toes), and a pair of flashlights. My goal was to open the shutter, shine a light on one side of my face with one expression, then shine a light on the other side of my face with a different expression.
I was not entirely successful.
a flashlight, a dark room, and a long exposure
This is an early attempt using one flashlight. I just couldn’t keep still enough while also dealing with the lighting. When I went to two flashlights things got better, but getting the two sides of my face exposed equally proved impossible.
direct hit with one of the flashlights, then my toe slipped off the shutter release
Sometimes when things go wrong, however, they can come out all right. My toe slipped off the shutter release on this one, before I got to the second flashlight. After this shot I realized that I was overexposing where the flashlights hit and I cranked the aperture way down. Things got better after that.
a decent shot, but with the same expression on both sides
This was a test shot while I was adjusting the aperture. It came out pretty cool, if you ask me.
finally held still enough, but didn't get enough light on the frowny side
Given infinite time and infinite patience, I think I would have got the shot. I had neither, however, and when I began to like my test shots more than the actual attempts I decided I’d done enough. Sometimes an experiment doesn’t yield the results you expect, but that doesn’t mean the results aren’t interesting.
