Self Portrait

Weekly Photo Challenge: Forward

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I’m at an uncertain point in my life right now. I’ve lived in Australia for 13 years, and I’ve been employed by the same company since the first day I was eligible to work here. In two weeks time, I’ll know if 1) I still have a job there and 2) if I do, whether it is the job I want. I have to look forward, planning contingencies in case my world is turned on its head in the near future.

Although I’ve lived in cities all of my adult life, I grew up on a farm. Part of the future I dream of is a return to the country life – the quiet, interrupted by the breeze whispering through the wheat fields, the cry of a dove, the orchestra of crickets and cicadas in the depth of the night. I’m just not ready for that change yet.

I took this photo in one of my favourite locations in Second Life. It’s a place called Far Away, and I’ve blogged photos from this spot before. For this post, I went back to that series of shots I took a few months ago, knowing I would find an image there to reflect my uncertainty. Of memories of the past that may someday be my present.

And always looking forward.

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That Troublesome Photo

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I love this photograph. And I hate this photograph! It’s one that I shot and thought, “Oh! I’m going to LOVE working with this!” Instead, I have gone back to it time after time, trying different processes and techniques, and I’m still not happy with it!

But I want to share my frustrations and challenges, as well as those photos I am (somewhat) pleased with. And this, so far, is the most frustrating and challenging picture I’ve done…

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I’ll keep going back to it. It’s my Achilles’ Heel. And one day…maybe…I’ll get it right.

Weekly Writing Challenge: Image vs. Text – There’s More Than One Side To A Story

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I actually started this post last night, and then ran out of time. When I saw the Weekly Writing Challenge, I decided it was the perfect reason to complete it!

Not for the first time, I found myself taking an old photograph and reworking it. Sometimes it’s an old favourite I want to experiment with. Other times it’s just for the sake of honing a new technique. And sometimes it’s to tell a different story with a single image.

This photo has gotten a LOT of mileage. It’s a very basic photo, so it’s easy to work with. This is the raw image. I actually shot this against a yellow, sunshiny background, but with changes to my lighting settings, I ended up with a black background.

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My first instinct was to create a head shot from this photograph. So I cropped it closely and allowed my expression to tell the story. I appear wistful, perhaps thoughtful in this image.

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When I started experimenting with overlays, this image immediately came to mind. The solid black background was perfect for adding a texture to tell a different story. One that shows me gazing into a window – perhaps wishing for a place like this to call my own.

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Three stories told by the same photograph. Where the story begins, where it was headed and where it is now.

But there are always new interpretations of any tale.

To be continued…

(Someday)