Five-Minute Self Portrait Photo Project

I wanted to get a few portraits of myself for my Classic Rock radio station Facebook pages and wanted something a little more ‘edgy’ and hard to fit the rock format. One morning the light coming from the east was very nice. So I grabbed the camera with the 18mm wide-angle lens and fired up a cigar. I knew with the wide angle and depth of field I would be pretty close with focus and getting myself in the frame. So I positioned myself in the east-facing doorway of our old garage and started shooting. I hand-held the camera at arm’s length, shooting a few frames with the motor drive then “chipping” to see what I was getting.

I wanted to prove you can get great self-portraits doing the old “hold the camera at arms-length and fire away” method that so many of us do to get ourselves in the picture at the Grand Canyon, at the concert, or with friends at the party. I used a little fill flash from the built-in strobe, dialed down to –2 on most of the images to kick the available light just a touch.

I have adolescent memories of a San Francisco Bay Area TV show host back in the late 60’s early 70’s named Bob Wilkerson. He hosted at late night weekend TV show called ‘Creature Feature’…introducing all the really bad ‘B movie’ horror and cheesy sci-fi flicks from the 1950’s. He sat in a big easy chair puffing away on his stogie! I wanted to get a similar feel to my photo of mystery and macabre with the slow shutter speed blur of the smoke that I had seen done so well by a famous photojournalist years back.

I’m not promoting smoking for all you ‘kids’ out there… It becomes a prop with the shade and my hat to add that element of hip mystery to the image. In post-production, I added some more contrast and edge to the images to get a look that is currently very popular with photographers, advertising and magazine covers.

Well I “survived” my first 'Midwest tornado fest.' The severe weather this past Thursday afternoon/evening brought more than 40 tornados to the state of Minnesota and more to the south in Iowa. Two of the Minnesota twisters were deadly. We were lucky in Fairmont to escape any touchdowns or damaging weather. It was a stressful day watching the TV and listing to the radio reports of what was going on all around us, wondering if we would hear the tornado sirens next.

But as is the case, first destruction, then beauty. At dusk, the massive storm front moved northeast, the sky displayed such almost surreal looking clouds. They are 'Aftermath Clouds' or as a weather professional friend said, they are “Mammatus” clouds and they usually show as a particularly potent thunderstorm moves out of an area. Indeed true.

Contrasts

I’ve mentioned before how impressed I am with the mammoth grain structures that tower above the midwestern landscape. Driving around Des Moines, Iowa recently looking for interesting “stuff” to photograph, I found this silo facility along the mostly unused Norfolk and Southern rail yard. I love to show contrasts in my images and this one has several. I love the “large and small” aspect of the modest brick building along the railroad tracks contrasted with the massive silos in back. I also like the white washed paint of the small structure in contrast with the weathered concrete elevator silos. The other interesting element that I really didn’t notice until doing a post-shooting edit is the left window on the brick building has a very bright, yellow shade behid the glass contrasted to the plain, dark window on the right. The small building itself would have made a fun picture, but placing it in contrast with the huge silos adds some punch.

Fitting Gesture

Country singer Billy Currington had a recent hit song that talks about honoring a departed one with a six-pack of beer. The song’s called “God is Great, Beer Is Good and People Are Crazy.” I found a little bit of that going on over the Memorial Day weekend at a local cemetery outside Northrop, MN. Don’t know the story, but it’s likely an old Army buddy stopped by to pay tribute to a long lost friend with a can of Hamm’s beer on the gravestone and some red, white and blue flowers. Actually quite touching. Thanks to all who have given all for our country!