As the guy who is usually the one behind the camera, I’ve realized I have almost no pictures of myself. Of course I have like 20 mirror photos on film, but those don’t count, I mean proper photos of myself. An avenue of photography that I have wanted to get more into during the quarantine months ago is portraiture. I even wrote a blog post during that time, encouraging readers and film shooters/photographers like myself to try things they had never thought of before. For me, as a film photographer who gravitates towards street photography, portraits were something I never got into.
Finding people to take pictures of was always something I had trouble with. I am a pretty shy person while I am out and about with my camera, I’ve never been the guy to ask random people if I can take their picture. Maybe one day I’ll have a smooth “hey can I take a picture of you” type phrase down pat, but right now I feel pretty awkward asking people if I can take their pictures. In that case, I pretty much only take portraits of my family, friends, and animals.
I was looking through Instagram and found myself incredibly inspired by a few self portraits that came across my feed. This was one of those moments in life where the stars aligned, I scratched my head for about two seconds, and I went into my closet to retrieve my tripod, shutter cable, a roll of Ilford HP5, some expired Cinestill DF96 developer, and my Pentax K1000. I was inspired and felt the immediate need to act on that inspiration – it was time for a few self portraits at home.
Being that I was in my apartment, I had limited “studio equipment” to work with. In fact, all I had was my very basic white light lamp and a high-chair from my kitchen. My walls are white – so I figured I could find an empty patch of wall and flick up in front of that. The only thing left to do was to screw my camera onto the tripod, screw my shutter cable onto the camera, and load a roll of film.
I was so new to shooting portraits that I literally didn’t flip the camera into portrait layout until I took a few photos. After just a few photos playing with the landscape layout, I flipped the camera and fired the rest of the roll in portrait layout. I went through the roll of film and put on about 4 or 5 different shirts. It was one of the most fun shooting sessions I have ever had.
The only uncertain factor in this equation was my Cinestill DF96 developer – would it still be strong enough to bring out the shadows and contrasts of the film I shot on? According to Cinestill, once a bottle of DF96 is opened, it has about a 2 month shelf life. Well, I opened this bottle in early April and have put about 7 rolls of film through it since.
After my self portrait session was over, I loaded the film into my Paterson tank and started to develop the film. I heated my chemical, poured it into the tank, and began agitating the film. Within 7 minutes, the film was developed, and would be ready to be scanned at my desk in just an hour once it was dry.
Once dry, I cut up the film and loaded the negatives onto my V600 film scanner. A few clicks on my scanning software and I was finally able to see my big ugly face. Check out some of my favorite photos from my first ever “proper” self portrait session below.
The best thing coming from this self portrait session is progress. While I was happy with a few of these photos, there were about 10+ other ones that missed focus by about a hair. The only thing we can hope to do with any skill we possess is to improve. To improve my focusing, my framing, and my set lighting for my next self-portrait session is what I have to do.
I had a lot of fun doing these – self portraits are probably the only way I’ll ever have portraits shot of myself. I’m the type of person who has a hard time getting natural or comfortable in front of a cameraman/camerawoman – even if they are family or the chillest person on the planet earth, I still feel weird.
Having portraits made of myself by myself was one of the most fun and comfortable ways to have your picture taken. I highly recommend you give it a shot if you can.
Check me out on IG at @onedaywedie!
Shutter Hunter 