494 - The Selfie Room
Alright! Welcome back to our regular programming. (That was directed at me, not you.)
As you’ve seen, my last adventure at White Sands was posted about a week ago. But I actually took those photos almost a FULL MONTH ago. Since then I’ve made it back to Colorado, hung out with friends/family, got my Prius in working condition, and drove to meet Haley in Missouri, where I’m at now.
I also survived a prostate infection. Remember how I got sick a couple weeks ago from dirty spinach in Nicaragua? Well that bacteria somehow leaked its way down to my prostate. This resulted in an intense burning sensation down south that could only be cured by a 10 day course of gnarly antibiotics known as Bactrim. I’m not sure if you want details or not, but I’m going to give them to you anyway.
Essentially I would get random “pin needles” of pain on my dick, burning while peeing, and it felt like my bladder was on fire most of the day. Plus the antibiotics had their own fun world of side effects. Imagine being thirsty and dizzy all the time.
And while that was all happening, my body decided to catch a cold. It was fucked. I just shivered thinking about those two weeks of hell.
So overall, the month-long break (and one week break for you) was a much needed exercise in recovery. I’m just glad it decided to kick in when I was back in the United States. But I’m better now, and ready to shoot. I’ve even been dreaming about going out and shooting. It’s been far too long.
My goal, and don’t quote me on this, is to shoot 2 days a week, and release adventures every Monday and Thursday. This might be subject to change as I’m also going to be actively working and traveling, as I need to save money for my next big trip.
But that’s just nitty gritty details. Let’s get to photography.
Today’s adventure, to kick the new season off, was a portrait shoot in St. Louis. At a good ole’ Selfie Museum. I’ve long since concluded that most of these self-proclaimed “Selfie Museums” are usually trashy, but for some reason I still end up at them on days where I’m not sure what to shoot. Which is often the case when you’re in a state like Missouri.
Either way I haven’t done a portrait session in awhile, so it’d be a nice change of pace from the past 6 months of landscape insanity. This place, called “The Selfie Room,” was $20 to enter, and consisted of 16 “exhibits” that you can use as backdrops for photos.
The first shot I got was my favorite photo of the shoot:
There’s something about getting an absolute stunner right off the bat that sets the bar for the rest of the shoot…
The minimalism of the balls coupled with the blue jeans really made this shot pop. One thing I like doing with portrait shots is to really embrace the surrounding colors with the edit. For example, since the balls were light and airy, I edited with extra “fluffiness” (i.e. increased the exposure, decreased the shadows, and added softness.)
I also like to add a tiny bit of saturation to the eyes to make them pop, as they should always be the focus of a portrait. Note that this is much easier when your model has beautiful, blue eyes.
From here we moved on to the next “exhibit,” which was a bunch of pink feathers on the wall:
Easy money. Again, notice how I edited it to appear “light and airy.” I even did a reverse white vignette to make it fade a bit.
From there I moved on to a closeup shot. The next area was this cheesy “glamor” backdrop, so I decided to lean into that and simulate a shot taken in a club with a flash. Luckily the place had provided ring lights for each scene, so I moved it right in front of Haley’s face to replicate a flash.
Check these two shots out:
I purposely had that lipstick tattoo framed up to compliment the lip gloss she was wearing- a very “club” look. Fuck I love that shot. Again, leaning into the backdrop for the editing style makes a huge difference when getting a solid portrait shot. Obviously I’m not going to edit this photo “soft” like the other ones, because this one has a harder party vibe.
From here, we moved onto another set that was fairly glitzy, but this time I wanted to make it weird as shit. The backdrop reminded me of something I’d seen at Meow Wolf, so I decided to flip it sideways and make it look like she was being hit by a soundwave:
Shout out to Haley’s friend Brandy for the idea on that one.
And now we move into the dark aesthetic… We’re really going down the whole spectrum here, folks. This final exhibit was hidden behind another one, and I think it may have been a “secret” spot. Either that or it wasn’t meant to be an exhibit. But it made for a good shot anyway as I had Haley swing her hair and look deeply into the camera:
And yes… I do realize it looks like she’s itching her butt. But I thought the baller facial expression and glowy hair canceled that out. I’d be willing to bet 90% of people wouldn’t even notice that hand placement.
For the last image, I decided to get a shot of a dark wall that simply looked nice. No model, just pure design. Make for a nice computer wallpaper. Check this out:
“Florescent Delusion”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 50mm 1.8
[ISO 500 ~ 17mm ~ f/2.8 ~ 1/250s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
I love shots that basically have a built-in vignette. All you have to do is add it a little more to make it all come together.
And that’s basically it for this shoot, folks. Felt good to get out again, even if it was just for some portrait madness. But hey, the skills cross over a decent amount.
See you next time… We’re heading to Nashville, Tennessee for a couple weeks.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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