Self Portrait Week 33: Spooky!

Here's one last photo from the backlighting session. I like the stark light that landed right on half of my face. I look so startled! I converted the image to black and white to emphasize that lighting.

With this photo, I'm finally caught up with a photo-per-week in 2015. My timing got out of whack when I was on my road trip.

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Photo Lessons I Learned:

• The longer a photo session goes on, the harder it is to stay creative. So it's a good idea to arrive at a photo session with several ideas to try.
  
  
• A stark uplight like this put some really nasty dark circles under my eyes. I softened the circles by doing some cloning during editing, but left enough wrinkles that I still look my age.
  
  
• I gave extra whitening to the whites of my eyes so they'd really pop and draw the viewer's eye in. You can see the reflection of the small light I used in catch lights in my eyes.
  
  
• I like imperfection in photos. So I left my birthmark showing on my upper arm.
  
  
• I put a severe crop on the photo to add tension. It gives the illusion that the room is empty and -- boo! -- something startled me.