Just When I Thought I was Done For the Holidays, A Self Portrait Assignment

OK, I'm not taking the credit here. It's all Brian Auer's idea over at EdpicEdits.com. He drops me note telling me what's on his mind and I say, "Sure, count me in." Now for the portrait - LaDawn, my wife, offers to take the picture of me - I gently remind her that it wouldn't be a self portrait then - I've got to be the guy pressing the shutter button.

So my brain starts thinking - OK, I'm a wedding guy so I've got to be dressed up like in a suit for this portrait - no problem here. But if I'm dressed up, maybe I should be in a wedding situation, too. Those "brain gears" were turning even faster now. Since I've been playing around with the "Extract Tool" in Photoshop these last two weeks - see today's tutorial entitled "Designer Portraits" above and "Winter Wonderland Any Time of the Year" from last week's Technique Tuesday. I felt I could drop myself right into a wedding scene. I was set - suit looking good, tie nice and tight, camera ready to go. We have a large mirror in our home so I positioned myself in front of the mirror and to the side of a window close by. I had the mirror in front of me so it was easy to take up a position relative to the window to get that beautiful "loop lighting" on my visage. Now can I keep myself in the viewfinder as I press the shutter - yep, it was all pretty simple. I had the shot, and I looked good!!

Now let's drop it into Photoshop, run the "extract" tool on the image - I was smart enough to keep the stuff behind me fairly bright so the extraction process went fairly quickly. Finally, "presto", there I am on that checkerboard Photoshop canvas. Next, drop in one of my favorite wedding images and I thought I was home free - until..... I saw Canon was spelled backwards - that darn mirror image. I managed to get the text reversed, but now the shutter button was on the wrong side of the camera. I thought about blogging Canon's new line of "left-handed" cameras but I didn't think that would fly. What to do -

I just flipped me, but now I'm on the wrong side of the wedding image covering up the bride and groom. You guessed it - I flipped the bride and groom image and removed his boutonniere - who will ever know. I finished things up in Photoshop and now have a nice new PR image. Actually the process was kind of fun. Check out EpicEdits right here to see what the other "contestants" are doing. And, Brian, next time I'm coming up with the challenge :~) And, by the way, count me in on your Fine Art blog - I'll get some images together.