Making - "What Am I Today?"

Well, I'm up late tonight again and even though I feel extremely tired, my mind is awake and restless. So, I wanted to go ahead and answer a few questions that I've gotten from a few people as to how I created the self portrait I titled on Flickr "What Am I Today?". It took about an hour to get the shots I needed (which ended up only being 2 separate shots) and probably about 2-3 hours of editing time. I knew exactly what I was going for with the concept ahead of time and whenever it comes down to a portrait like this, you almost have to talk yourself through it to keep yourself motivated in the right direction.

...so let's go back in time and take this from the very beginning....

Pull the lamps from the bedroom. Set it up like a studio Brooke. You know you've got to work this dull basement lighting. Oh wait? That lamp is busted... crap. Let's find another one. Perfect. BOOM. Light on.

Now, time for some music and blare the speakers since you finally have the house to yourself for a couple hours. Good. Soothing yet energizing.

Ok.. Tripod out. Settings set. Timer on. Clear the crap off the coffee table so I can actually see you through the camera at eye-level and keep it snappy. Now breathe, relax, and be yourself.



Dang, that's TOTALLY not what you're going for. Come on Brooke you know you are better than this... RELAX! We want your good side, and your bad side. What makes you happy? Books. But not just any books right? You want those books that are so old that you are too afraid to touch the pages they might turn to dust. Yeah. Those books. They deserve to be something.



Why are you so excited? lol You make me feel crazy. Come on do you really want to let the world to think that you are crazy? Childish? Easily amused? Wtf? What's wrong with you?



There it is.

Bam. Sometimes to create such shots of myself and one that actually portrays 2 completely different sides to me, I actually do get into arguments with myself in my head. But it totally worked for this concept. That's when I changed into my dark clothes and portrayed the little devil sitting on my right shoulder yelling at me in my own head the entire time of trying to capture the first shot. But of course, the little evil one didn't take more than 2 tries.



That magic for something like this happens all in the beauty of editing. I complied the two images together through Paintshop Pro X and realized when I did, the frames on the wall were a complete distraction to the image I was portraying. Since I knew it was going to be impossible to match the eyes in such a way again, I had to break out the clone brush tool in Paintshop and work my strongest magic I possibly could with the simple, yet very complicated and time-consuming tool. After this photo was finally complete, I made the decision that simplicity compliments a photograph in more ways than 1 and my new place I will make sure I keep a few walls completely free for this very reason. I'm not a huge photoshopping diva. My style usually tends to stick with the very true, 100% real image as to what you would actually see with your eyes and capturing it in such a magical way it looks photoshopped. But sometimes, it's fun to test your skills :)



The lighting on me was completely different on the two separate images which I tried to avoid at all costs but it was impossible after editing through these. So I decided to make it entirely black and white which actually ended up pulling the image completely together anyway. After all, the whole concept is to portray my two contrasting sides, why not represent through the beauty of B&W? But since the back wall was so close to my skin color, I decided to add a texture to give this photo a little extra something it wouldn't otherwise have. I thought then and still kind of do that the texture makes it look a LITTLE bit cheesy but it works and added a "cartoonish" feel that pulled it together. Textures can be found anywhere online but I find most of them on DeviantArt. It's hard to find high res files but not entirely impossible.



Now that I've been working on my 365 project, I've made it my goal to keep it simple. Less photoshop, real techniques on the RAW image. Learn the settings. Take the risks. Make some leaps. I think no matter how good anyone gets at anything they do, there is always room to improve.

But that's all for now! It's nearly 2 am and it's time for sleep :)
Good Night World!
Brooke