I have found that doing self portraits is
rather therapeutic for me.
It helps me deal with my anxiety
and depression in a more
constructive way.
I tried to push myself out of my comfort
zone several times this year.
It's never my goal to do what I think will
get the most likes or be really popular.
I do what speaks to me and if I like it,
then I've accomplished what I intended to:
to create something I love.
Here are my self portraits I did in 2016!
It's always fun to get creative and a little weird.
I had fun doing these self portraits
this year!! I did fashion, creepy, emotional,
and weird portraits.
I think self portraits are a great way to
practice things and a wonderful form
of self expression.
(This one was published on Dark Beauty Magazine's website).
These are my favorite self portraits
I've taken this year.
I even taught a mini self portrait workshop
in the fall!!
I love self portraits because they allow
me to practice lighting, angles, posing,
post processing, etc.
without having to worry about pleasing anyone.
They are also a great way to be artistic and
express yourself and your feelings.
Here they are in the order I
took them throughout the year.
My first self portrait of the year. This was a
difficult one for me. Very out of my comfort zone.
I did it as part of a way to accept the changes
made to my body after having two
(very large) babies. I sure do love them, and
I am glad my body was able to carry them,
but it's also hard to accept such large, sudden changes
to your body.
I decided to be a 'four year old' with my daughter.
We dressed up crazy and played in her room
while the camera was constantly taking photos
on a tripod. It was a fun time!
I played around with shooting through a plastic
bag for this shot. It is completely unedited in photoshop.
I decided to play around with backlighting and a fan
in my studio.
I donated my hair to Locks of Love,
so of course that meant I needed
a picture of my new hair.
This self portrait is based on a line from
the song Human sung by Christina Perri.
The line is,
"I can hold the weight of worlds if that's what you need".
I entered a makeup contest put on by Pentatonix
based on one of their music videos.
I decided to go from dark brown hair to platinum.
Because, why not?! So I had an orange phase
for a little while and decided I might as well
do a cool (or hot) self portrait with my wacky hair color.
This is part of my Outings series I'm still working on.
I am terrible with the whole hands/fingers on the face thing.
So I practiced and got a couple shots that I liked.
This was just a random play around with
makeup and hair thing one night.
This is my other incredibly difficult self portrait
of the year!! I decided to show the world
that I have dermatillomania (skin picking disorder).
One of my goals this year has been to
overcome it as much as I can.
And good news, my arms do actually look better
now than they did in this photo. And
this photo actually looked better than they did
at the beginning of the year.
My scars are still healing, my skin heals rather
slowly. But it's getting there. I still haven't
completely conquered this, but I have
made major progress!
Sometimes you just need to play around
with photoshop.
This was a shot from my crazy Halloween self
portraits I decided to do!
I got to model for Courtney Little MUA
for her white tattoo sugar skull series!
These next two are basically just documenting
my crazy hair colors I did.
And my last self portrait of the year is pretty creepy!
I'm not a hug fan of my nose so I decided to
do this portrait. It was a good exercise in clone stamping
in photoshop, that's for sure!
And hey, I'd look pretty weird without my nose,
so although I don't particularly care for it,
I kinda need it, and I'm glad I have one.
Here's to another year of creative (hopefully) genius!
Here are my favorite self portraits I
took in 2013. I like doing self portraits
because I feel like it's a great way to
practice things. And it's a great way to
push my limits and express myself.
I bought this cool old window
and wanted to do a photo shoot
with it. I finally came up with
a concept and decided to
do it as a self portrait series!
