First attempt at self portraiture

Title says it all I'm not the prettiest guy in the world, too many pints of Guinness for that Had to do a self portraiture image for my digital photography course, had fun. Didn't get the framing quite right in this shot, but the other ones with the right framing were either slightly OOF, or I didn't like the face I was pulling Slightly cut off the top of my head, but too lazy to try it all again (had packed up the tripod/lens etc before checking the images out on the PC).

Technical details on the shot - single light source, tungsten light bulb, about 3 metres away, side lighting. A bit harsher than I really wanted. Shot at f2.8, 1/2 sec, ISO 1600, 98mm with the 70-200 f2.8. Came out OK considering.

Post processing was a mix of channel mix, contrast/brightness and hue/sat adjustments to get the resultant b/w image how I wanted it. Then simply USM and Neat Imaged. Was going to leave the image with noise, but decided against it. Noise with the 1D on ISO 800 and above is quite ugly imho.

A thought just came to my head though - I could use the remote capture software possibly for this, might help with framing etc. mmm. Might have another craic at this tomorrow (excuse the pun, craic is Gaelige for "having a good time" and is pronounced the same way as the English word 'crack').

C&C appreciated.

Slán,

Dave

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The lighting works for me, nice shot.

First I like your face! We could be twin brothers!
I like the picture too. The lighting is good. The shadow of your noise is too big on your cheek (it would have been better to have the light moved a bit forward) but you could not see it (autoportrait) and it gives a very natural aspect to the capture so, again: I like it.

Thanks guys, kind words are greatly appreciated. I'm not very experienced with portraiture, my main areas have been landscapes and some wildlife shot, but for the past six months macro has been my passion.

When I went digital at the beginning of the year I made a decision to really apply myself to become a better photographer and to move outside of the square and start to learn other areas of photography. So far I've done one gig (didn't turn out super great, but learnt a bit and got some great tips from the guys in the performance section of the forum). I'll be doing another shoot for the same person at her new gig in October Had my first studio shoot last Tuesday, enjoyed it immensely even if the images weren't perfect. I experienced something new, and learnt a bit as well, can't go wrong with having done that.

I'll experiment with the lighting etc and try and get a better shot/framing as well over the next few days. I have to say I enjoyed doing this - the course I'm currently doing has really made me start to think a bit more creatively

Thanks for the kind words, and C&C guys, much appreciated!

Dave