Self- Portraits: February

February 4, 2024

If last month was a lesson in studio lighting, this month was a lesson in preparation. 

February is not only Valentine’s Day, but also my birth month and I found some exceptionally cute Pinterest inspiration pictures to capture either/ both of those themes in one photoshoot. And since I spent some time on YouTube learning about how to actually set up studio lights, I thought this shoot would be smooth sailing.

But I overlooked the fact that to actually follow the Pinterest pins, I would need props and specific things to, ya know, actually make it look like a Valentines or birthday shoot. And because there are specific dates to both of those things, I couldn’t exactly just reschedule the shoot. I mean, I guess I could have but it wouldn’t have had the same effect. So, the night before my shoot, the weekend before Valentine's Day (so I would have time to edit the images), I spent HOURS going to multiple stores trying to find what I needed. 

Even the simplest items, like heart sunglasses, I couldn’t find. Amazon wouldn’t get me the things I wanted in time, sooooo I essentially had nothing. Not even a cute outfit. 

In hindsight, I should have just abandoned the shoot, come up with something else and executed that idea later in the month. But I didn’t think of that at the time, so I carried on with a theme-less studio shoot just to get more practice in. 

From a technical standpoint, this went much better. I got to play with some easy lighting techniques and overall, everything just went much smoother. 

However, this is the second part of the preparation lesson. Compared to last month, these images were technically better. But the images were creatively much worse. I didn’t have a cute outfit, fun poses or any props, and in some cases that can totally work! But I didn’t plan for that, so it was really just me, in a lackluster outfit, standing in front of a color backdrop. 

So, not very fun or exciting. 

The silver lining, because I’m always going to find a silver lining, is that I’m getting better working with the studio equipment, and again, even though this didn’t turn out how I wanted it to, I still had fun. The frustrating part was having a fun vision and it completely falling apart, but it’s only February! The next months are going to get better, and similar to last month, I won’t be making this mistake again.