If you ever need to take a portrait style picture of yourself– say for Facebook or maybe some lame-o online dating site that only a desperate loser would ever resort to– one way to make yourself stand out from the background is to purchase a hideously expensive special lens for your hideously expensive digital SLR camera.
Another much cheaper alternative involves the use of a regular compact camera and a swivel chair:
- Sit on swivel chair
- Hold camera at standard awkward arm’s length
- Hold shutter button down halfway to lock focus
- Give the chair a spin
- Hold as still as you can and take the shot while chair is still spinning (and try to time it so you don’t have light source directly behind or in front of you)
- Be careful standing up, because you’re probably dizzier than you realize (you’re not twelve years old anymore)
I was concentrating quite hard for the first one. Using a monopod would probably be helpful for getting less blur in the face for higher resolution shots, since you could prop it against the chair to keep it relatively stable.
As you can see I have yellow hair again (In these shots it is more orangey because it is still wet). This time I’m not going to bother trying to tint it to get rid of the yellow since it just ends up making my hair look kind of like grey straw.