Since I’m the one behind the camera all the time, it seemed fitting to start out the photo a day with a self portrait. There were a few things that I was trying to accomplish:
- Indoor photos – I take many more photos outdoors, so I need practice working on indoor settings.
- Reflection photo – Using mirror
- Indoor photo – Adjusting for photo taken in a dark area
The photo was taken in the walk-in closet without any lights on. The hall behind me was brighter, and the mirror was reflecting the brightness from the hallway. I did try to turn the light on in the closet, but it’s an overhead light, so it just made a bright spot on my head – not what I was looking for. Indoor photos often need lighting adjusted, and not typically what we use to see when it’s dark.Metering is one of the things we use to set exposure. Typically, I leave the metering on full so it will get the light from everywhere around the image. In this case, because of the lighting conditions, I needed to change my metering. The best results were from center-weighted, rather than spot metering. This was best since my image was going to be filling up the photo with only a small amount of background light.
Most of my photos are taken at aperture priority, changing only to shutter priority when I’m taking a photo of something moving and I want to stop the action. I set this aperture at F6 and also left the iso at auto. The camera did the rest.
I’m happy with the results, especially since I didn’t even get the light reflection in the camera lens.
I need to clarify what is easy. When I’m out walking I often notice things that other people don’t see. There is a hollow tree, with a vine growing around it. Another time I notice a leaf that has been eaten away by bugs, leaving only the structure of the leaf. Those are things that catch my I and I photograph them. I often see what others miss, the unusual in nature. Of course the unusual is not the only type of thing that catches my eye. Flowers, fall foliage and water reflections are among many of the other images that I like to photograph.