A Little Self Portrait Fun

I wanted to replace my photo avatar used on several different websites with something a little more special than the basic selfie.

I decided that B&W would look neat.

 Neat-O. Marvy Fab.

But, more than just a B&W portrait, I wanted something to evoke the feel of a different era. I chose the 1960s. Early 60s. A time when the conservative, clean shaven, slicked hair, white shirt and tie look was still the expected business appearance.

So, how to shoot? Get out my old Nikkormat 35mm or Yashicamat 120? Load those with IlfordPan or Tri-X?

Sure, I could. But I decided to go digital from the outset, instead of a film to digital transfer. Mostly because of quicker results. I think I will still do a portrait of me and my wife with film later on. I'll post all about that later.

Here are the two poses out of a dozen or so that I narrowed down. I used the 35mm full frame equivalent focal length of 85mm. I set my flash manually at full power, so it would more closely mimic using bulbs or a Honeywell Strobonar.

The old Polaroid camera was larger than my head, so I chose the pose with the Yashicamat 120 TLR, a camera I have had since I bought it used back in my preteen years. Yeah, I had a job before I was 12!

I cropped it in some to minimize my non 1960s era girth and then converted to B&W via an image manipulation program. Photoshop, Lightroom, GIMP all work well, I used ACDSee Pro 6 for the level of contrast controls it has, plus ease of use. 

Remember, when we shot B&W, we often used filters to change contrasts of colors. A red filter would add some pretty harsh contrast, so I used the equivalent of  Nikon's old portrait filter, which was a yellow/green. Softened certain skin tone contrasts. I used it a lot on my old 105/2.5 Nikkor.

I also chose to soften the overall image, just like if I was using an old Zeiss Softar.

I vignetted the image and reprocessed with Sony DxO Film Pack software to add those subtle nuances of film that still can't be done easily in PS or ACDSee.

Then, I went back to ACDSee and Sepia toned it, then cropped to finished image file.

From gelling my hair and setting up the camera to final image saving, this selfie took about 45 minutes. I'll do this again, mostly because now that I post this, I can see some other things I want to do to the final product.

On Facebook, I titled this with a Doctor Who reference (Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey) because it's kind of a mix of new tech and old style. All these steps we used to do with lighting, or in camera, or in the darkroom, now done on a computer even Captain Kirk never imagined.

Try it yourself!