84/365 “Bean Pot Self Portrait”

Shot with Camera+. Processed with Aperture and Noise Ninja.

Why I Took This Shot

This is my first (and maybe only–we’ll see) selfie of the project. While enjoying breakfast this morning with my wife, she mentioned how one of the Dutch masters (painters, not cigars) would show phenomenal detail in the reflections on the subjects of his paintings. That lead me to playing around with the reflections on the dishes in the kitchen–specifically, a large stoneware bean pot with a glossy finish. It did not take me long to realize that because of the shape of the pot, there was no way to make a shot without the iPhone being a part of the shot. Not wanting to abandon the idea of photographing the reflections, I chose to embrace them and include myself as well. Consider this a sort of “team photo” for the project–me and the iPhone.

How I Took This Shot

Since the entire point of the image is the reflection, I filled the frame completely with the side of the bean pot. As you can see, I just stood the iPhone up and used the time setting in Camera+ for a 5-second delay. The first few shots had me looking straight at the pot, which made my reflections seem to be staring into space–when taking reflections shots like this, always look into the reflection of the camera’s lens!

The overall brown tone is from the bean pot and while the window is completely blown out, the light was pretty weak. I called upon my wife to assist by holding my collapsible diffuser with the big Mag-Light behind it. This provided enough light so my face was not completely in shadow. Even with this additional light, the ISO was still 800 (noisy!) and I ran the image through two Noise Ninja filters to remove the bulk of the noise. Overall, I really like this shot–even if I am in it. I may try it again someday with the Canon or with better light, but for now I am still including it. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice on the technical side for the image–in this case the noise.