Being highly interested in (one might even say obsessed with) photography, I tend to take photos of pretty much anything. I'm at home a lot, so over the years I've accumulated a good deal of photos simply from around the house; I bring my camera with me when I go out to eat; when I have friends over to play pool; when I go riding; when I go to church. I basically document everything in life through a lens. One area of photography that I have recently found to be very enjoyable, is portraiture. And, not usually having willing subjects to shoot, I tend to take a fair number of self-portraits. In fact I took one today.
taken with E-M5 II & Nocticron; 1/20th sec., f/1.2, ISO 100
One thing about modern mirrorless cameras I personally appreciate very much is being able to control the camera from my iPhone, which makes setting up on a tripod and getting a good "selfie" a breeze. Now, I will come right out and say that I am really happy with how this portrait turned out, and I just thought, on a whim, that I ought to share the creation process with my readers. Feel free to steal my methods if you so desire.
First thing I did was get the lighting right. I closed the blinds on the windows facing east, and opened those on the window looking north. In front of that window I set up my OM-D on a tripod to be eye level with me. A few taps in the app and a bit of trial and error later, and I had some shots I knew I liked. So I brought the files into Lightroom, and started processing.
Post-processing is, for me, a big part of photo creation. I have a vision in my head when I take a photo, and it takes some skill not only in front of the camera to make it a reality, but on the computer as well. For the most part, I'd say my editing is pretty minimal and simple. For this photo I applied the Agfa Portrait XPS 160 film emulation from VSCO, turned off all sharpening and noise reduction, as well as the grain effect, then set the shadows all the way to -100, and put clarity at +14. The rest of the settings were made automatically as part of the VSCO Film preset. I think from beginning the setup to exporting the photo took me about twenty minutes. And if I'd ended up with more shots it would merely have meant another few moments spent applying the same settings to those and making tiny adjustments as needed.
So there you have it. There's your portrait of the day. (I honestly wish I could take something every day that I was this happy with, but I can't.) I hope you've enjoyed this quick "tutorial" post.
Also, if you would like to do a shoot with me sometime, that may be able to be arranged. Just drop me an email from the link below, or send me a message on Instagram if you prefer.
Toodles,
— Joel