Vera Sytch's Posts
Here I am!
Rembrandt did it. So did early photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Ansel Adams. And during Take Your Child to Work Day on April 26, the sons and daughters of Kodak employees did it, too.
Self-portraits - likenesses that artists make of themselves - are as old as art itself. Early Greek sculptors, ancient Egyptian artists, and modern painters have all placed themselves in their own compositions. After a brief lesson on self-portraiture, the children of Kodak's TKM (Technical Knowledge Management) employees in downtown Rochester went outside armed with Kodak digital cameras to capture themselves in their own pictures.
Different ways to take self-portraits include:
Arm's length self-portraits
Simply hold your camera at arm's length in front of you, point the lens toward you, and press the shutter button. This way of putting yourself in your own pictures has become so popular that some EasyShare cameras now have a self-portrait mode that assures proper focus at arm's length and minimizes red eye when taking close-ups of yourself.
Remember to vary the angle of your camera.
Self-timer self-portraits
Place your camera on a tripod, table, or other steady surface, set the self-timer, and run into the picture. Some EasyShare digital cameras have a 2-shot self-timer setting that takes the first picture after a 10-second delay and a second picture 8 seconds later.
Reflection self-portraits
Take a picture of your reflection in a mirror, puddle, or other reflective surface. This seemed to be the most popular kind of self-portraiture among the kids.
Shadow self-portraits
You may be surprised how distinctive your shadow is. Simply take a picture of your shadow, or work your shadow into a landscape scene when the sun is low in the early morning or late in the day. However, the overcast skies on Take Your Child to Work Day did not allow us to experiment much with this technique.
Parts of your body self-portraits
Your hands and feet are unique, so place them in a scene and record your individuality. Use the self-timer, or stretch out your arm or foot and click away.
Creative self-portraits
Some EasyShare cameras have a panorama stitch mode that "stitches" together up to three pictures. Use that feature creatively to take a series of self-portraits in a panoramic scene, or even in three separate scenes that the camera combines into one.
I often bemoan the fact that I'm missing from our family pictures because I'm the one behind the viewfinder. Now I realize that I have only myself to blame!
