Self-portraiture

“You say: ‘I only work, all night and day’.
Do say: ‘Use me, I’m cheap to rent’.
You say: ‘I only work, all night and day’.
Use me, I’m cheap to rent.”

[ Machine - Theatre of Tragedy ]

It’s been a while since my last proper self-portrait. Of course I modelled together with Jimmy Richter in his Vampire-inspired photoshoot with my camera set on the tripod, and I took a self-stock photo as one of the Legionnaires for Legion, but the last photo of myself I took as a self-portrait was Astaroth, back in October 2009, which I took as apart of the then-newly started Infernal Lords project, rather than as a stand-alone self-portrait. Before that, I only took two or three other self-portaits after I bought Miss Lucy, all of which were part of some diptych.

The fact is I used to take much more self-portraits when I had a compact camera; aftermath, first I did’t have a tripod, and then I lost interest in myself as a subject for quite some time (you can notice that in 2009 up to mid-2010 I modelled only seldom in general). Anyway, now I’d like to get back in track, so I’ll try to experiment more with self-portraiture.

The problem is, self-portraiture is quite difficult, very tiring and also frustrating at times. Beside the effort of preparing as a model (make up and stuff) and that of shoot as well, it often takes a lot of attempts to get what I exactly want, as I’m not directly in control of the camera; exposure and focus are often a bit (or totally) off because I don’t have a remote control to help me set the camera while already on the spot, let alone the cropping, which I can’t control in any way before and always varies between shoots due to the fact I have to do back and forth to push the button and I cannot take the same exact position. Besides, I don’t like shooting indoors, as I can only rely on the natural light from the window, which is not always enough.

Although I have many ideas which I could do by myself, I can’t really say I enjoy myself while doing self-portraiture, so I tend to postpone; for instance, I had the idea for Cheap To Rent over two weeks ago, but never felt like actually giving it a try (well, also because I had a bunch of older stuff yet to be published). Nevertheless, it might be because I’m not skilled enough yet, which is of course because I don’t practice, so I still hope things might improve with many attempts.

Anyway, after many attempts and two lollipops, i managed to catch what I wanted on Cheap To Rent, so the effor was worth in the end, which kind of motivated me in getting better with self-portraiture. I’ll be also sure to ask my dear friend ContessaNera for advice, as hers are among the best self-portraits I’ve seen so far. Stay tuned, hopefully something good will come out soon.

Oh, and on a side note: the font I used for the title is the same of the Theatre of Tragedy logo during the Musique and Assembly period. I also used the same styling with the caps+lowercase+caps. Small details matter!