Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, a smile formed on her lips. This would be the spot for her shoot. The large living room/kitchen area that had one huge window streaming in whatever sunlight was available. It was near midday hours, so she would do her portraits quickly before there wasn’t any light left.
But while they would be done quickly, they would be taken with care. It has been a while since she did self-portraits, but today her camera was calling her name. Plus, she needed relief from the pressure and chaos that plagued her previous day and left her furious, drained and ready to spill over with tears by the time she reached her bedroom.
She set up her tripod near the right side of the cream-colored sofa next to the lamp. Her camera remained attached to the tripod’s base and she clicked it to life to alter its settings. The more she tinkered with setting up her “scene,” the more excited she became. Once everything was the way she wanted, she pressed the shutter button to activate the self timer and ran to her designated spot to pose before the camera fired away.
* * *
Yesterday was a bad day. A really bad day. My work shift started with me dropping a few dishes on the ground while trying to bus tables as the Sunday lunch rush started and by the time it was over, I was more than ready to leave that restaurant. I tried to decompress over at another restaurant for a late lunch, but it took 10 to 12 minutes of waiting and me getting up to leave for them to notice that I haven’t been served yet.
I cried when I reached my bedroom and dressed down for the evening. This wasn’t the first bad day I’ve had, but I felt sick afterwards. I knew I had to cheer myself up from the inside and listening to my favorite genres of music wasn’t going to cut it.
So today, I got dressed up (somewhat), pulled out my trusty Nikon D3200 camera with two lenses, and took a set of self-portraits.
It was tricky since my only source of light was the large glass door/window that lead to the patio of the townhouse I’m staying in with my parents. But I made it work by bumping up the ISO and opening the lens as much as possible to let light into the camera. At one point I wished I had a 50mm f/1.8 lens to make things easier, but I used what I had.
The results were much better that what I expected and I think I’m getting the hang of taking self-portraits! Of course I’m going to do this more in the future when I carve out some time for myself. But it felt great to tap back into one of my favorite hobbies/professions: Photography!
le fleur artsy 