Generally speaking, self-portraiture is difficult for me as, like many people, I hate the way I look in most photos. So it's always a challenge no matter what. Then I came across this thread posted by the Click
@theclick:
http://365project.org/discuss/themes-competitions/22242/the-naked-click
A long, long time ago (when my 36 year old son was a toddler) our good friend and neighbor, Andrea, modeled in the nude along with another woman for a photographer friend of hers. The precise focused lighting produced some stunning abstract images; I've always wished I had explored the possibility of buying a print of one I particularly liked.
Anyway, back to the present. This wonderful image done by Kali
@kali66 for an album cover challenge made me think of Andrea.
http://365project.org/kali66/365/2014-03-25
I don't have the skill (at least right now) of producing a photo approaching Kali's, but for the last week or so I've been thinking and thinking of what I wanted to post for number 365 to finish my project year before I move right into the next 365 days. Impulsively I decided to go ahead and give it a try -- to challenge myself with this. The other night, when it was late enough that I should have been going to bed, I took my camera down the basement and experimented with the lighting at the top as back lighting. After a few shots with a stool as stand-in, I pulled a table over, put a plastic bucket on top of that, and the camera attached to my little bendy tripod balanced on top of the bucket. And then I got naked and set the camera on 10 second delay. I only took a few shots -- the first two of which were totally unacceptable. After I switched from the light in the hallway directly at the top of the stairs to using the back room to the left and the kitchen to the right, I took this shot. I originally intended it to just be a dry run and I'd come back later if it looked at all promising.
While this is not fine art, I shocked myself by not hating the way I look in this photo. This is the severely cropped version made B&W in Photoshop Elements and a few settings tweaked. I experimented with lots of filters and honestly, I can't remember whether this retains any of them. Grainy as all get out, but that was expected and probably a mercy.
It's tilted because the camera was tilted as it hung askew on the tripod and my feet were too cold to want to fiddle with it to get it aimed straight. LOL. In the end, though, I kind of like the tilt.
In my Alternates album I'm posting the original un-tweaked except to crop less severely.
http://365project.org/mcsiegle/alternates/2014-05-04
PS. In this B&W version, since I lightened the exposure some, there is some sort of weird mark appearing on my chest below my left shoulder that looks like a birthmark or tattoo, neither of which I have. A shadow? I don't think I could successfully clone it out neatly enough to look right.
you will see it in a different light.
That birthmark/tattoo like shadow could be from your spectacles reflecting a light.