Day 147 (August 5) - Self Portrait

Self portraits are tough. And I've been avoiding doing one for ages now, so I decided that today I was going to bite the bullet. But my vanity didn't really want a face shot.

So I decided to photograph my feet again. But this just reminded me that I should really cut my toenails. And then . . . I decided that I wanted a picture of my hair. Just the way it was, sort of disheveled, falling out of its braid at the end of the workday. After all, today one of my smartest students in the highest level class I teach, told me 'teacher, beautiful hair. color . . . beautiful.'

I know she can make a sentence in English. She just . . . doesn't, unless I make her.

Anyway, back to the picture.

Simple, right?

Well, actually, no. I held the camera behind my head. Too close! said the autofocus. I tried holding it further away. Not enough contrast! said my lens, and searched wildly for something to focus on. After about five minutes of fruitlessly holding the camera up and behind my head, my arms were complaining loudly, and I still had no pictures. Not even any bad pictures, just no pictures.

So I went into the bathroom to use the mirror to get my shot (word to the wise, if you want to take a self portrait, don't choose the back of your head). It still was ridiculously hard, but I did get a few I liked by resting the camera on top of my head and angling it down to the mirror. A bit of a crapshoot, but I guess I learned something:

If you want a picture of your hair, ask someone else. And, self portraits may be for other photographers. I think I may have reached my self portrait peak in 8th grade.

As a thank you for reading all of my mumblings, here are some kitten pictures.


Don't you wish you could fall asleep like that?