More portrait work (self portraits)

Regular readers will remember my last post mentioned that I was going to be testing out zoom settings on my SB-900 flash to better illuminate my beauty dish. I can report back that my tests were very successful and that setting it to a zoom setting of 200mm does the trick and gives great light - and fills the dish nicely. And as I do not currently have a model to use for these shots, I have been using myself as both the photographer and the model.

Being a bit of an introvert is not the best thing for a portrait photographer as people are my subject matter and it certainly makes it "interesting" in approaching potential models; and also something I need to really deal with/overcome in the year(s) to come. I also plan on creating a studio space for myself in the coming year so I have a "home base" for shoots. Not every (potential) client has a location to use or wants to shoot outdoors, so a studio space would be very preferable.

I'm still working on defining my personal style; but I'm not sweating it as I know this will come with time. Weather it will be a lighting style, a colour style, high key, low key...maybe I never will have a distinctive style that identifies my work. Not all photographers have an instantly recognizable style.

The latest self portrait shoot eventually ended up with me converting to Black & White, by trying out some of the presets I have in Lightroom. I ended up using one from a collection from Lindsay Adler I purchased as part of a bigger package deal a few months ago. I might have to try it out on some more portraits as I like the look it produces.

Still find self portraits a bit of a challenge to get the focus and framing good. Although I did bend the rules a little on this one as I used my 12-24mm zoom lens @24mm, to give an effective full-frame equivalent of 36mm. This is about as wide as is advised for a portrait at this close a range as distortion can occur; although keeping away from the edges of the frame will reduce this problem.