I have yet to talk about a self-portrait, and this particular one, I shot with my tablet. The light was hitting right, and I was parked up in my window seat one of my favorite spaces to whittle away my day. I am finding as I get older I am not as much a fan of shooting myself, because I am not usually a fan of the results, meaning if multiple things don't come together I usually look bad in the picture.
This image also is fairly recent, this is only three years ago which at my age is last week. I have observed that adults go through phases of sameness, meaning even with weight fluctuations, they go through a period of time in their mid-life where they more or less appear consistently the same. I am moving from that sameness to a new normal, and I haven't quite adjust to the new way I will look for probably another fifteen years or so, if I deem to stay around that long.
Like the other photos from this Series Favorite collection, this shot is also a nude, but not an obvious one. My hair is really dominating the shot so much that you might forget to look in the lower-left and notice that you can actually see my genitalia. Personally I love this kind of shot and if I was still on Instagram I would have probably posted it as is. Because it speaks to a truth, if I am at home I am not usually clothed unless its really chilly in here.
Otherwise the only time I am putting on clothing is if I have to go to the supermarket. I can't say outside, because that would be untruthful. I have written repeatedly about how I walk three quarters of the park totally nude, and when I get to Eastern Parkway I disrobe again and bare my feet, for the last three blocks to my house, always returning home completely naked.
Let's not front, this photo is retouched or filtered. I don't usually let a single photo of me nowadays leave my tablet without some kind of mild tweak. And this edit was mild, just a little softening and color play. I wasn't removing anything that wasn't already there, just enhancing a little bit so the image had a more polished feel.
I am not sure if this was the front or back camera of the tablet. I think I was shooting in portrait mode, which uses the front camera of the tablet, but also automatically softens the subject. I may have also expanded the frame by, no that was a lie, I just checked the app, and you can't expand the frame in the portrait option. So I just held the tablet far enough away to get not only my face but my torso also.
In this last section I usually talk about if I would print the image or not, and yes I would print this image, but like a 5"x7" that I could put in one of my little frames. The shots composition doesn't lend itself to being more formerly printed and framed. It is highly unlikely I would get it printed because I wasn't a fan of how Google Photos rendered a lot of my digital photography, which means I need to find a better partner for simple prints.
The name is quite appropriate, because this is literally As I Am [June 2023, Brooklyn]
kianamaiart
discoholicmusic
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
romaincrisis