It's a challenge to do a good self portrait and I try to conquer that challenge at least once a year. I think it's fun and I figure if I can capture an image of myself that I am remotely happy with, then it helps me to capture images of others that they will be happy with. The picture to the right in my side bar is one of the many pictures I took in an entire shoot of myself last year. I was really happy with the results and how it improved my ability to relate to the people I photograph, so I decided I should attempt such a project every year. I may or may not do an entire photo shoot of myself this year, but until I make a final decision on that, here is this year's attempt. While I put my camera on a tripod and used the camera timer last year, this year I hand held the camera. I was pleasantly surprised . . . it's not too shabby for a shot that is usually impossible to get something great out of . . . you know . . . the ones where you're with a friend or your husband and no one else is around so you hold the camera out and get a shot to commemorate the experience . . . full of cheese and fun, but not usually something fabulous. I'll also confess that I took this picture while I was supposed to be being spiritual on a retreat with our church family. You see how easily my mind can wonder sometimes! And yes, I'm clearly a heathen! Also, I'm usually against doing a ton of photoshop on my photos, but when it comes to a close-up of myself, I'm all about it! Not fair, I know, but if I'm vain enough to take pictures of myself on a church retreat, I'm certainly too vain to let you see too many flaws. It's times like this that I have all the love in the world for photoshop. Maybe that defeats the true purpose of the challenge, but none-the-less, it is what it is.
