Self Portrait

Mark and the team at PT4U set Tom and I the task of taking a self portrait for to bring along to each visit.  I am not at all keen on having photos taken, I am MUCH happier behind the camera but the task has been set so I couldn't really refuse as much I wanted too.

I wanted the self portrait images to say something about me and show an element of my character and my passions in life.

The first self portrait was makeup and vintage inspired, I work for a number of makeup colleges and absolutely love the work, it gives me such a buzz, the students have amazing ideas and produce beautiful work.  I asked Josie Clarke one of the lecturers to come and do my makeup for the session, she is very experienced in airbrushing and made an amazing job of the makeup.  Josie stayed for the session and helped with styling and pose direction, big thank you to Josie for all her help.

The second self portrait I wanted to show my love for dance and movement, I am not the greatest dancer but I LOVE to watch and photograph dancers, it is one of my greatest passions in photography. I used a light floaty material to portray the fluid and graceful movement of dancers. This was by far the most difficult shoot I have encountered so far,  I hadn't fully appreciated how difficult self portraits are to take and even more so with other variables such as moving fabric.  The majority of the images were unusable, fabric in mid air all clumped together, ridiculous facial expressions as I concentrated too hard on the fabric, rubbish posing etc. It was certainly a challenge but I have learnt a lot from it.