I have to confess, I didn't have much time for this exercise this week. I'm a single mom, and I'm homeschooling four kids. I know others do it but it's just a tad much for me. So I hurried and only made two instead of ten outdoor self-portraits, and the weather wasn't cooperating, so I shot them in the backyard. The first one was a very generic shot of me sitting under a tree and I didn't like it. There was no interest in the photo. The second one is the one below. I put the camera in the grass and turned on the self-timer. I'm actually looking at some flowers in the grass, not the trampoline, and maybe a kid or two in the trampoline would have heightened the interest but truth is, I had three minutes and that's all I could do in three minutes. I actually like it. I tried it in B&W, just because I always do, and it lost any and all appeal. Just boring, no interesting lines, no nothing. This color one works because it has the grass in the foreground, the blue sky (for a minute or two between showers), the popping blues of the trampolines and the sandbox cover (in case you were wondering what that is in the background). Self-portraits, as noted last week, do require a lot of thought and pre-planning. Spontaneous snapping doesn't work very well. Thinking outside the box always works better.

Maybe next time, I will try to look at the camera...

As always, don't forget to check out the blogs and websites of my photog friends for their results.

Binkies + Noseprints Abbey Road Designs GSG Photography Elaine Janet What Eyes See Daily