Enclosed in My House

For the past few months I have been working from home, and I am starting to get very sick of it. It's very lonely, and I can't leave the house to socialize whenever I feel like it because I have work that I need to do. I feel this picture captures the emotions I have felt lately. I like how the light from the window suggests the outside world, and I feel like my expression is very genuine.

Business Photos

I used to take business photos for people at the last studio I worked at. Now, anytime I see a business photo displayed somewhere (mortgage ad, real estate billboard, etc.) I critique it. Most of them are down right hideous. I saw a photo for a real estate agent where she's looking off to the side and looks like she just opened her mouth to say something. It looks very unprofessional and quite frankly it makes her look rather dodgy.

The other day I had two people ask me to take pictures for them in the same day. This was a record for me, and I took it as a sign. I felt very unprofessional as I scribbled my contact info on a small piece of paper from my planner that had "Shopping List" typed on it. I knew it was time. Time to get some business cards.

I want my business photo to be different from traditional ones, but I do want it to have certain characteristics that good business pictures have. I want it to look professional, but creative. I also want to look happy and friendly, not melodramatic. I like this photo best out of the ones I have taken so far, but I may crop it in a little closer so my face doesn't get lost when it's on a teeny tiny business card.

I'd love to hear what you all have to say about this picture? Do you think it conveys the characteristics I mentioned earlier? Would you buy photos from someone with this picture on their business card?

Enclosed in the Sun

I feel like a combination of Icarus and Narcissus in this picture.

Hobbit

"Not all who wander are lost."

~J.R.R. Tolkein

Teacher

My mom is a teacher. I never want to be a teacher. I'd be hideously impateint with the kids, I'd have to get up at the crack of dawn, and I'd work zillions of hours for way too little money. The wierd thing is, I think I look like a teacher in this picture. Or how about librarian? I could live with that.

Blueberries

mmm... Blueberries are my favorite antioxidant.

Enclosed Spaces #2

Trapped in The W.B.

Being Silly

I am getting so much crap for this picture on myspace, but I think it's funny. I was tired of trying to make myself look hot in pictures.

Update:
My roomate said that guys are going to think this picture is hot. I think she know some really wierd guys.

Self Portrait Challenge #1

Me Enclosed In His Dark Materials.

I tried to think of all kinds of negative ways that I feel enclosed, but I couldn't think of anything original.

All I could think of is how I feel when I totally dive into a really good book.

There are certain books in my life that make me forget about the real world around me.

It's a little cliche to say, but everyone hasn't everyone felt totally envolved in the world that a book provides?

Wait, there are people who haven't?

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Blankets by Craig Thompson

and most recently...

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

These are books that came to me at just the right time.

At a time when I didn't want to be in the real world.

I read them in each in one sitting.

Even if it took days.

Even if it wasn't technically one sitting because I left to go to work, eat lunch, etc.,

it was one sitting because I never really left the world that I had entered.
Me, Enclosed.

Graveyard

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

~Dylan Thomas

Lady in the Water

Eyeballs

Change of Pace

Just so you all know, I've decided to change the pace of my blog. I will no longer be adding self portrait tips to this blog because, quite frankly, I ran out. Instead, I will be posting a variety of pictures. Many of them will be self portraits still because I am my only model I have that is willing to drop everything at midnight and jump in the pool for a Lady in the Water photoshoot, but I will be posting other pictures as well. Enjoy!