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| Faith DaBrooke posing for a selfie in front of the Lower Manhattan skyline. |
I take a lot of selfies.
I started taking selfies about the same time I started dressing en femme from head to toe. I wanted to see how others would see the female me rather than how I saw myself in that full-length mirror mounted on my mother's closet door.
Self-photography provided the means to do that, but it was expensive back in the good old days because I had to use real film. I had to buy film to take my selfies and then pay to have my selfies processed. I also had to buy flash bulbs to take good selfies indoors.
And then there was the potential for being embarrassed and outed if the person processing the film realized that the girl posing in my selfies was actually me! I wonder how many femulators built photo darkrooms in their basements to avoid being outed?
Eventually, I worked around the problem by using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. Polaroid film was more expensive, but I did not have to take the photos of my "girlfriend" anywhere to be processed. The expense did prevent me from taking mass quantities of selfies. Then the Apple QuickTake digital camera entered my life and changed everything.
Quality-wise, the QuickTake was a step backward from the Polaroid, but the film was now "free" and I could take as many selfies as I wanted, at least until the camera's battery ran down.
And I did take a LOT of selfies! Thousands to be exact.
As digital cameras improved, I graduated from the QuickTake to the Canon PowerShot. And as the Canons improved, I upgraded my PowerShots and currently own my third, a Canon PowerShot SD940 IS. It is full-featured, takes excellent photos, and I thought it was the cat's meow until I started taking photos with my iPhone.
Comparing photos taken during the same photoshoot with the Canon and the iPhone, the iPhone does a better job in my opinion. Or should I say, I do a better job taking photos with the iPhone than I do with the Canon. Perhaps if I was a better or more knowledgable photographer, I could do a better job with the Canon, but for now, the iPhone is my go-to camera.
Sister blogger, Faith DaBrooke of Adventures of a Gender Rebel fame, takes a lot of selfies, too. Viewing her selfies, she seems to be an expert at it. After her latest selfies knocked my pantyhose off (see the photo above for an example), I asked her what tools she uses.
Faith replied, "These photos were taken with a smart phone. And yes, I use a tripod, a little one. If you go on amazon there are a bunch of options. Mine is about 8" high with bendy legs and it came with a remote."
Those are the same tools I use, but if you ask me, Faith's selfies are much better than mine.
Almost all of my selfies are taken in my home where the lighting and scenery is not optimal. I need to do remote selfie photoshoots, but I have been shy about taking selfies out in the great outdoors. (What will people think?)
I think I need to get out more.
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| (Source: Bluefly) |
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| Candy Darling |
You and Faith both do good work with your presentations and with your selfies.
ReplyDeleteIs that a real reproduction of a genuine Cosmo cover or is it the work of the Stana elf?
Thanks, Pat.
DeleteI plead innocent. I found the Candy Cosmo cover on the Internet and I am 99% sure it is not a genuine cover.
if one looks closely, there are several clues that it's a mock-up and not an actual edition of the magazine:
Delete1 - no price on the cover
2 - the cosmo title text of that era was always in white, not "flaming" gold
3 - there is usually a lot more text surrounding the cover girls than shown here
if anyone's still in doubt, then this appears to be the genuine edition for that month:
http://www.livingly.com/Fabulous+Magazine+Covers+From+the+Year+You+Were+Born/articles/rbJafNyXEpq/1972+Cosmopolitan
of course back then cosmo only ever featured professional models as cover girls, who had nothing to do with the content inside. but sadly like most magazines they now have to feature slebs (and it wouldn't surprise me if that included transgender ones) on the front in order to keep publishing. but were any anonymous transgender models featured (knowingly or otherwise) before the cult of celebrity kicked in?
Love your selfies, and I discovered faith blog a few months ago, she is great with the selfies too, plus she has a GG partner who I am sure helps too... they have a great podcast I enjoy too
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout out! Love that Candy Darling cover.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing about selfies- take hundreds. Take thousands. Professional photographers will take a thousand photos to get one great one. That's just how photography works. When I take shots, I'll take 400 or more just to get 8 goods ones for my blog. And the other 392? They are neither good nor flattering and that's okay. It's a numbers game.
ReplyDeleteit confounds me when i go out to events and people ask to take a photo of me - not because i am flabbergasted that anyone should want to, but because it usually is literally one photo... even though that have digital cameras that can take thousands! and that is even despite me pointing that out, which means if i'm lucky they might take one more!! but it seems old habits die hard with some folks...
ReplyDeletei would suggest that if you have the means, film yourself with a video camera and then use snipping tool (that is available on later versions of windows) to capture any decent-looking frames as stills as you go through the footage using windows media player. in my opinion, that way you are less likely to get obviously-posed pictures and thus create a more carefree and "natural" look...
just to add: i suppose in this case it's also proof that the good old english reserve is still alive and well (certainly among us older "limeys", anyway). i normally think that's a good thing in this ott world of today, but that's an exception!
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