If you can stand another self-portrait. I’m fascinated with shallow depth of field portraiture, so I was experimenting today – on myself again since I had no one else at hand. I’ll have to try this on Sweetie this weekend, if he’ll let me. I think I could get better results if I didn’t have to rely on auto-focus to get the shot.
I shot this in my office. Lighting: diffused daylight to camera right and I held a large white box cover camera left to fill in the shadows on my right side (your left). Shot at ISO 100, 1/60s at f/2.2. The extremely shallow DOF puts my eyes in focus but makes the rest of my face and hair quickly fall off into blur, and even my nose is slightly out of focus. I really like this effect when I see it, and from what I’ve read, can be an effective technique when shooting the “mature” face.
Carissa Snedeker Photography 
Odd, I never liked the falling off of the focus. I strive for greater depth of focus, and scrapped a lot of photos which have that “falling off” effect precisely because of it.
And I’m not saying the picture is no good. It’s good, and I like it, and I see it in many portraits which I also like.
But, I happen to like your other portraits more, in part because of the greater depth of field. The one above seems to me more “casual” as opposed to the others, which were well-lit, and well focused.
By the way, how did the class go?
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Thanks for your feedback on the portraits. All of this is a learning experience and I’m trying to learn effective techniques across-the-board. And yeah, this one was a casual shot. I mean, c’mon, I had the camera balanced on my laser printer, for crying out loud. 🙂
As for class, I got stuck with the Piece Of Crap printer that prints black and white photos with a slightly green tinge. I got so frustrated I left early. Fortunately, I decided to make the investment in an Epson R2000 and since it arrived early this week I can print on my own at home. Started doing that last night and I’ll be finishing up this weekend. I really hate being at the mercy of the vagaries of the print lab and inconsistently calibrated printers.
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No, the shot is good. The “casual” part refers to the falling off focus.
And I know what you mean about the printers. Many moons ago I invested in an Epson Photo 2200. I print all my stuff, and love the control it gives me.
I’ve read I should upgrade to one of the new ones, but honestly, unless I want to go larger than 13×19, I can’t see why I would upgrade.
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I absolutely can stand another self-potrait Carissa and I love this one… I understand what Emilio is saying about the depth… still love it… well done and I’m curious about your sweetie…If he’s in for it 😉
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I love seeing your self-portraits, Carissa. You’re giving me the inspiration to try it myself (I just feel like I’ll need LOTS of time and planning to do it, since I’ve never done it before). I think the shallow depth of field is an interesting experiment, although I agree with disperser that your portraits with greater depth of field are also very successful images. It might be interesting to compare side by side.
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Melanie, I am thinking of doing a shoot just like that…to show the differences between very shallow depth of field and standard portrait depth of field. In that case I’m going to want to use a model rather than myself so that all the technical details can be tended to by me. It really is hard to do self portraits and get accurate focusing, especially when using shallow DOF.
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I think it is a really strong selfie, your choice of focus is perfect. Self portraits can be an odd experience, you suddenly find yourself staring back at yourself from a computerscreen.
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Yes, and to make matters worse, it is the opposite of how we see ourselves in the mirror every day, so it can be particularly disconcerting. It looks like you but just a bit odd. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
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