Welcome back to our weekly instalment of the Motherwell Mafia’s Alumni Weekly Challenge. Last week we were playing with negative spaces, and this time the theme – chosen by Julie – was ‘Self Portrait’.
The realisation that we would have to take photographs of ourselves was, for a few of us, a moment that made us shudder. Certainly for me, I believe I should stand behind a camera rather than infront of it unless there’s a myriad of instagram filters to make my face look like at least a 5 rather than a -10 like usual. I did try though and I took three photographs, all of which I’m not too pleased with but there’s only so much I could do.
So below is my submission for the challenge. It was taken in my flat’s tiny en-suite bathroom – trying to set up the tri-pod was a struggle as there wasn’t a lot of room to extend the legs – and my light source was the torch on my phone because I’ve literally nothing else other than the room lights to use. Honestly I didn’t have any proper idea about what I wanted my final image to look like so I was just playing around for a half hour in the dark with various light positions and expressions. Ultimately I ended up with an SD card packed with many blurred shots that all looked rather hideous.
I did manage to get a couple of other shots but I didn’t like them very much either, however I’ve put them below anyway. I will say though, I didn’t realise just quite how many freckles I had on my face until I started working on the top image of the two. It must be because I’ve been outside a bit recently working in the garden, allowing the sun to mottle my skin again.
Anyway, this weeks winner was – drumroll please – Julie! That’s right, the lucky lady has won 2 weeks in a row! Her image this week was great and gave me a chuckle so I couldn’t not vote for it. So now the next theme rests in her hands once more. Fingers crossed it’s one that doesn’t entail having to subject all of you to another shot of my face next week, haha!
See you next time!
Alana Louise Bowman Photography 