Skip to main content

52 Week Challenge – Week 1: Self-portrait


I have decided to do the Dogwood 52 week photo challenge, which gives you a new photo assignment each week alternating between a portrait, landscape, and artistic photo types.  The goal of the challenge is to increase your creativity and improve your photos in each of the three areas.   I will be blogging each weeks assignment, which will show the original out of camera and the final edited image.  I will also note which setting I used and some of the edits I made.

This is week one which was to take a self-portrait.  For these images, I set up a gray backdrop (very wrinkly) behind my couch, placed a 18-55mm lens on my camera with a beauty dish on a 450EX II Speedlight on camera. I used my cell phone as a remote trigger.  The settings on the camera were ISO 200, at F4.0, with a 1/15s shutter at a focal length of 18mm. 

The first image I cropped the image to focus on my face. I then adjusted the lighting to brighten my face, then adjusted the white balance a bit, then added some vignettting, and finally blurred the backdrop to remove the wrinkles and fix some small facial flaws.


Original Image Out of Camera

Final Edited Image

The second image followed the same basic procedure of cropping, adjusting as the first image except converted the image to black and white.


Original Image Out of Camera

Final Edited Image

Overall, I’m happy with how the images came out, but did notice they were a little soft and that I really need to iron the backdrop.  Thus, I need to work on the sharpness of the image. In addition, I should have moved the flash off camera and that beauty dish that I have needs to be slightly bigger because it leaves a ring shadow in some of the photos.   

Next week is a landscape

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cobwebs Everywhere

On October 7 th , I did a studio spooky session with Coralinx Cosplay .   The central theme of this shoot was a pretty goth girl who had a fondness for spiders and decorating with cobwebs, making it a perfect Halloween session.   Note: Cobwebs are defined as abandoned or old spiderwebs that have collected dust.   Many cobwebs are the result of comb-footed spider (i.e., black widows) that make irregularly shaped webs.   Spiderwebs are active structures built to catch prey.   (Source: Western Exterminator Company) For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Westcott FJ400 2 Phottix Strobes 2 strip boxes 2 rectangular soft boxes 2 c-stands 3 light stands Backdrop stand Black seamless 2 Westcott silicon gels Tether cable Laptop Laptop holder Sandbags A-clamps Spyder Color checker Fake cobwebs Table ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Katsucon 2025 Wrap - Up

Katsucon 2025 didn’t seem as crowded as 2024, but I still wasn’t feeling it.  Katsucon will always have a special place in my heart, but I think I’m just bored with it, from a creative perspective.   While I still love working with cosplayers the location itself no longer excites me and I’m tired of fighting the crowds.  If I return to Katsucon 2026 I think I’ll just set up a studio in my room and do studio sessions.  I can be a lot more creative with a studio session, and I get to use all my lights.  So now let's talk about photography.   For Katsucon I was shooting with my Canon R6 with an 24-105 Canon RF lens, and I had a fisheye lens on me as well, but we will discuss that later.  I had two speedlights, one on camera which acted as a trigger 90-percent of the time and one on a light stand which my husband would hold during shoots. This year I booked 11 cosplay sessions and shot 869 frames.  I shot a range of ISOs from ISO 100 to ISO 800...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spooky in the Morning

On October 5 th , I did an on-location spooky session with Rebecca at Claude Moore Park.   The theme was Victorian ghost; however, it is hard to be a ghost at 9:30 in the morning on a bright sunny day.   I did my best to get a spooky look. For these sessions, I used: Photography Equipment Other Equipment Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Cannon Speed lights 1 30-inch umbrella Light stand Assistant Smoke Genie The setup The set up was relatively easy.  I mounted a Canon speed light on a light stand with an umbrella.  My assistant then held the light in the appropriate spots as we made our way around the park to different locations. Camera Settings This session was held outdoors in bright morning sun and was intended to look spooky, so I tried to keep the images dark.  Thus, I used ISO 100, which is great for sunny conditions.  I wanted to maintain a soft background as much a...
Post a Comment
Read more