Let's Discuss Artistic Selfies

Let’s Discuss Artistic Selfies

What’s worse than seeing yourself in a photo - maybe hearing you voice in a recording or that number on the scale - well for me all three are horrific. If you told me a year ago I would even consider taking a selfie I would have laughed and laughed hard! 

I tend to make a lot of people based images and I like taking my own photos. I have photoed friends, family and occasionally sneaked a pic of a stranger here and there. But sometimes your are the best or only model. 

I purchased a holder for my iPhone so I could mount it to a tripod that I already had and a remote shutter release. I dress up and take photos in my house - in a hallway in front of a neutral colored wall - and most are awful. I don’t care, as I am not going for that perfect shot - I am going to alter the picture a lot, sometimes even cutting off my head. 

So let’s talk about “artistic” selfies, not photographs. Remember you are making art not doing a portrait shoot and for me the messier the better - blur, lots of texture and other junk are your friends. 

Lets start with taking a few shots of ourselves - even the normal selfie is fine. If this is absolutely out, then maybe some pics of someone else because the final image is not a depiction of an actual person. Take all kinds of pictures - close ups, head shots, full body, sitting, standing, posing - just take a lot of photos. Maybe try a photo of your shadow remember you look tall and thin in shadow pics, a win-win!

If you do not have a tripod and a remote have someone else take your pictures or photo someone else - you want images to choose from and to work with. If they are out of focus or just plain awful who cares - mine usually are!

Now for the actual image making part - I will call these images “artistic selfies” for the sake of our discussion. When I start doing one of these images I am thinking mood and interesting composition - something people will look at and think art not photo.

I will position the head off center, cut off the top of the head or side of the face, position the subject high or low on the canvas space. I may zero in very close and just show part of the face or eyes only. I may cover the face or head all together. If I am working with more of a figurative piece, add a hat or glasses. Be creative. How about an upside down or sideways person. At this point I am just working to get positioning for my subject and starting to work on an idea or a composition. For me this would be in iColorama, Procreate or SuperImposeX but any app that has layers would work. I start with a size and shape in mind - square or rectangle either white or dark BG with the selfie layered on top. Right now I am not interested in masking out anything, just positing. I start with the selfie layer - enlarging, moving it around, moving it off the canvas, making it smaller - just moving towards something I find interesting. If something needs to be masked out or removed I do it here after I establish my position. 

Once I get the overall position of the face/figure I go into Touch/Retouch to fix any areas that need it. Better that plastic surgery and cheaper!!!! Now I start thinking if I want to add any other objects to my image - and I usually do since I am the queen of stuff!!

Next I start running my image thru a lot of different apps and saving the results - nothing is too crazy here, you never know what you might get. Don’t think of these images as a finished piece just steps. 

I finally start to evaluate what I images I have saved and start to layer them over my original keeping parts of some, masking and adjusting. I start adding other stuff maybe lettering, textures or objects - not really thinking too much about it yet. Sometimes I like to draw and paint on top of the image, for me in Procreate. Always on a separate layer. 

I keep working in this way until I get something I like. I may still make other images from my saved work. I may take one of the images I particularly like and start a new image from it maybe moving in closer, moving out or cropping - all these images can be reused. 

Some additional information: 

I LOVE my remote shutter release and use it a LOT, not just for selfies but for other photography as well.

My iPhone holder - https://www.amazon.com/…/B01…/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01…
My remote - https://www.amazon.com/…/B07…/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00…

Some apps I particular like for this type of work:

iColorama
SuperImposeX
Procreate
Affinity Photo
Leonardo
Repix - one of my favorites for making painterly images
LightBrush
Adobe brushstrokes
Glaze
Any app that is destructive
Also texturing apps, Forumulas, Stackables, etc.
Try any apps that you have

OR you could just use Photoshop.

The image I have used in this write up is a selfie I took and the final image looks nothing like the photo. I was influenced by Sarah Jarrett when I made this image and I want to try this technique again. I took the image with my iPhone6. Other apps used were - iColorama, Procreate, Repix, Touch/Retouch. I took the original selfie into iColorama painted out the background and smoothed the complete image. I then went into Procreate and did the actual painting on top of the image, I used a pastel/crayon type of brush and lots of color. Next into Repix to do more painterly work on the image. I used Touch/Retouch to fix any spots that I didn’t like. Finally back into iColorama for adding textures and stuff on top and making any final adjustments.  Below some more selfies!!!!!