It took about 30 shots to get this one. Self portraits are something I’ve never been good at, nor even interested in. However, after shooting a model today in the studio, the light streaming in from the windows was too good to pass up.

The biggest challenge was getting myself in focus, since I can’t see myself through the viewfinder. I put a Nikon D700 on a tripod with an 85mm f/1.4 lens. After a few attempts at guessing the focus and failing, I eventually removed the camera from the tripod and brought it with me to where I would stand for the portrait. I then pointed the camera at the tripod and focused on it, to simulate the distance. Initially I was trying shots at f/2.8 because I wanted to make sure the depth of field was shallow enough to throw the background out of focus. This left very little leeway for any mistakes in my distance from the camera, as even an inch or two closer or further away could render myself blurry. I eventually bumped up the aperture to f/4 which gave me a bit more room to play with, without impacting the background too much.

The light was very, very warm as the sun was setting, but I cooled it down and desaturated it using Adobe Lightroom.