Photographing My Self

I take photos of myself nearly every time I present as a woman. I do it for two reasons:

1. To feed this blog. (The blog is hungry for photos and it must be fed.)
2. To see if the outfit I am wearing is good, bad, or ugly. Photos are more revealing than a mirror. What I see in the mirror often looks different in a photograph. Photographing my fashion faux pas allows me to make adjustments, for example, put on a girdle so I don’t look so fat.

Self photography is an art. I probably discard 4 out of 5 of the self-photos I take because there is something technically wrong with them (usually related to focus, framing, lighting, or worse, because I look fat).

I use my iPhone 14 Pro for most of my self-photography. The quality of the iPhone photos is very good in my opinion and it is hard to beat the convenience.

I use the self-timer function in the iPhone’s Camera app for a lot of my self-photography. Set the timer for 10 seconds, click the Camera’s shutter button, walk into the Camera’s field of vision, pose, smile, watch the birdie and wait for the Camera to snap a shot.

In a pinch, I lean the iPhone against something to take a self-timed photo. But most of the time, I use a small tripod designed to hold the iPhone. The tripod has bendable legs, so I can use it in diverse settings.

That covers the hardware, but what about the software, that is, the model in my selfies?

I learned that my best photos are ones in which I smile.

Over the years, I have seen thousands of photos of transgirls and I can never understand why some girls look so unhappy in their photos. They are living their dream, although sometimes only momentarily and they should be very happy about it, yet some of them look like they just downed a spoonful of castor oil!

So, smile and smile naturally, not in a forced manner. I used to have a forced smile in my photos, but I worked on it and now my smiles look natural and the results are much better!

I am also becoming more adept at posing for my photos.

1. I tilt my chin up slightly and extend my neck forward to avoid the double chin.
2. Instead of a straight-on shot, I turn my shoulders slightly to the left or right. And pose with one leg in front of the other, for example, by crossing my legs at the ankle.
3. With legs crossed, sometimes I will put one hand on my hip. This elbow-jut pose results in a ladylike ballerina effect.
4. To accentuate my legs, I thrust one hip to the side, stretch out my opposing leg as far as it will go and point my toes.

Taking selfies as you pose in a mirror is tricky.

1. For starters, shut off the flash, otherwise your selfie will be nothing but flash reflected in the mirror and that is not the result you want unless you are Barry Allen.
2. Take mirror selfies while looking at your reflection in the mirror rather than looking at the trigger button on your smart phone. This is simple with the iPhone because you can shoot a photo by clicking one of the iPhone’s volume buttons, which is a lot easier than trying to click the virtual trigger button on the iPhone’s screen.
3. Before showing off your mirror selfies, use photo-editing software to flip the image horizontally so that you look natural and not the opposite, which is what a mirror displays.

I am a work-in-progress and so is my self-photography, but practice, practice, practice and someday my photos will do justice to a complete woman.

(This post is an update of a post that originally appeared in June 2015.)

Wearing Posse

Before and After

My New York & Company Experience

You may have noticed that lately I have been regularly using models wearing outfits from New York & Company in the Femulate Her slot. Their models and clothing are attractive and I have been tempted to self-gift their apparel. But I am always a little hesitant about buying online from a company I have not done business with in the past. I am concerned about sizing. Does their clothing run small or run big or is it true to size?

However, they have had such terrific sales this month that I could not resist any longer and I ordered two dresses: a button-trim cable-knit sweater dress in burgundy spice and a belted bell-sleeve sheath sweater dress in parker green.

UPS delivered the dresses on Friday. Opening the package, I was impressed with the quality of the dresses. Trying them on, I was happy because they both were perfect fits (like gloves) and they looked very nice, too. So, their dresses seem to run true to size and I would not hesitate to order from New York & Company again. And I may do so soon if their holiday bargain sales continue.

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company)

Grayson Perry, circa 1982. (Follow the link for an interesting article about Grayson's early crossdressing experiences.)

Tuesday Thoughts

You Can Look It Up

I just learned that the word I created, femulate, has been submitted for inclusion in an online dictionary "pending investigation."

Dressing Room Selfies

Dunno if you heard about the transwoman who was arrested taking photos of another woman inside a unisex dressing room in a store in Idaho, which does wonders for our cause... NOT.

When I try on clothes in a dressing room, I often take selfies of myself to see how the camera sees what I an wearing. In light of the Idaho case and the general brouhaha about transpeople using facilities intended for the gender they are presenting as, I will think twice about taking dressing room mirror selfies.

I don't want to be accused of being a voyeur if the flash of my iPhone camera goes off while I am in the dressing room. (I usually have the flash turned off for mirror selfies, but sometimes I forget.)

Pinning Womanless Beauty Pageants

Guest poster, Susan King (of  Transitioning Into Tomorrow fame), wrote, "I have been reading the Femulate blog for years. One of the subjects I love are the womanless beauty pageants. So I created a Pinterest board of males who try to femulate for a pageant."

I have my own Pinterest board called "No Girls Allowed," which is a collection of womanless pageants, fashion shows, weddings, etc. And if you use the Pinterest Search option, it will turn up even more womanless pins... lots more!

Wearing Nine West.

A recent "Dads in Drag" contestant

Fixing Mirror Selfies

I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else, so I will mention it as it crosses my mind again. (Actually, it crossed my mind yesterday when I posted a recent mirror selfie.)

Years ago, when I started taking mirror selfies, I liked the results, but I always thought something was wrong with the photo. I did not look quite right.

A mirror selfie depicts the opposite of reality. What appears on the left in a mirror selfie is actually on the right in the real world and vice versa.

Since no face is perfectly symmetrical, that is, the right and left sides of a face are not exactly the same, it makes perfect sense why a mirror selfie does not look right. That's because the face is flipped horizontally from how it really appears.

To fix a mirror selfie so that it more closely reflects reality, use a photo manipulation app to flip the image horizontally. (In Photoshop, select Image > Image Rotation > Flip Canvas Horizontal to fix a mirror selfie.)

The accompanying photos show a mirror selfie before and after flipping the photo horizontally.

Now my mirror selfies look quite right!

Wearing Ted Baker London.

Actor Romain Duris in the 2014 French film The New Girlfriend.

Watch the Birdie!

Hey Stana,

Have you ever considered a segment on self-photography?  You do an awesome job!

Suz


I take photos of myself nearly every time I present as a woman. I do it for two reasons:

• To feed this blog. (The blog is hungry for photos and it must be fed.)

• To see if the outfit I am wearing is good, bad, or ugly. (Photos are more revealing than a mirror. What I see in the mirror often looks different in a photograph. Photographing my fashion faux pas allows me to make adjustments, for example, put on a girdle so I don’t look so fat.)

Self photography is an art. I probably discard 4 out of 5 of the self-photos I take because there is something technically wrong with them (usually related to focus, framing, lighting, or worse, because I look fat).

Lately, I have been using my iPhone 5 for most of my self-photography. The quality of the iPhone 5 photos is very good in my opinion (good enough for me) and it is hard to beat the convenience.

The only problem is that the Camera app bundled with the iPhone does not have a self-timer and girls like us can’t live without self-timers! So I obtained other camera apps (Top Camera and Camera+) that do include the self-timer function. The former costs $3, the latter $2. And to do a self-timed selfie right. I also bought a small tripod ($4) that is designed to hold the iPhone while I get ready for my close-up.

I also use  a Canon PowerShot SD940 IS digital camera. It is full-featured (including a self-timer), 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, I'd say that the results compare favorably. However, since I always have the iPhone in my purse, it is my go-to camera.

That covers the hardware, but what about the software, that is, the model in my selfies?

I learned that my best photos are ones in which I smile.

Over the years, I have seen thousands of photos of transgirls and I can never understand why some girls look so unhappy in their photos. They are living their dream although sometimes only momentarily and they should be very happy about it, yet some of them look like they just downed a spoonful of castor oil!

So, smile and smile naturally, not in a forced manner. I used to have a forced smile in my photos, but I worked on it and now my smiles look natural and the results are much better!

I am also becoming more adept at posing for my photos.

• I tilt my chin up slightly and extend my neck forward to avoid the double chin.

• Instead of a straight-on shot, I turn my shoulders slightly to the left or right. And pose with one leg in front of the other, for example, by crossing my legs at the ankle.

• With legs crossed, sometimes I will put one hand on my hip. This elbow jut pose results in a ladylike ballerina effect.

• To accentuate my legs, I thrust one hip to the side, stretch out my opposing leg as far as it will go, and point my toes.

Taking selfies as you pose in a mirror is tricky.

• For starters, shut off the flash, otherwise your selfie will be nothing but flash and that is not the result you want unless you are Barry Allen.

• Take mirror selfies while looking at your reflection in the mirror rather than looking at the trigger button on your smart phone. This is simple with the iPhone, because you can shoot a photo by clicking one of the iPhone's volume buttons, which is a lot easier than trying to click the virtual trigger button on the iPhone's screen.

• Before showing off your mirror selfies, use photo editing software to flip the image horizontally so that you look natural and not the opposite, which is what a mirror displays.

I am a work in progress and so is my self-photography, but practice, practice, practice and someday my photos will do justice to a complete woman.

Wearing Boston Proper

Comedian Darren Trumeter (right) in television's The Whitest Kids U' Know (circa 2010)

Better Selfies

Moved by Paula's photography post, I poked around the Internet looking for tips about taking selfies.

Google provided a selection of websites containing tips and after poking Google's finds, I am passing along one that I thought was the best of the bunch for taking selfies: wikiHow's How to Take Good Selfies.

Over the past year, I have been using my iPhone 5 for most of my photography. The quality of the iPhone 5 photos is very good in my opinion (good enough for me) and it is hard to beat the convenience.

The only problem is that the Camera app bundled with the iPhone does not have a self-timer and girls like us can’t live without self-timers! So I bought two inexpensive apps that do have self-timers: Top Camera and Camera+. The former costs $3, the latter $2.

And to do a self-timer selfie right, I also bought a small tripod ($4) to hold the iPhone while I get ready for my close-up.

 

 

 

Wearing Naked Zebra.

 

 

 

Omar Kingsley femulating as “Miss Ella” circa 1885.

Not-So-Vintage SX-70 Selfies

I bought a Polaroid SX-70 camera in 1974. The film was expensive: $7 for each film pack of ten pictures, which calculates to $35 in 2014 dollars! But I was young and single and could afford a film pack once in awhile.

I built my own remote control so I could take "SX-70 selfies" to document my dressing skills. Most of the SX-70 selfies were lost in the great purge of 1983 and I only have a handful of selfies that I took post-purge.

The camera bit the dust in 1985 and so ended my SX-70 photography.

A Christmas gift, a collection of postcards depicting vintage SX-70  photos, sparked my interest in the art of vintage SX-70 photography and I began perusing the Internet for samples. As a result, I discovered that a lot of people were way ahead of me and I found lots of vintage SX-70 photos online.

I wondered if anyone had tried using Photoshop to make current photos look like vintage SX-70 photos. Again, I discovered that a lot of people were ahead of me.

After checking out a number of online Photoshop tutorials, I chose one that  looked promising (Photoshop tutorial: Create the Polaroid effect for images by Ryan Boudreaux) and tried it with a recent photo of me taken in a hotel room. (How kitschy can I get?)

I was happy with the results and decided to share the final product with you (above).

 

 

 

Femulators being arrested for “masquerading and indecent exposure”
while attending a 1962 Halloween ball in New York City.

 

 

 

Wearing Nicholas (gown), Marc by Marc Jacobs (earrings) and Schutz (pumps).

Selfies

Last week, I mentioned that 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 because you had to use real film. You had to buy film to take your selfies and then pay to have your selfies processed. You 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 your selfies was actually you! I wonder how many femulators built darkrooms in their basements to avoid being outed?

I avoided 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.

However, 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 inexact.

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 5.

Comparing photos taken during the same photoshoot with the Canon and the iPhone, the iPhone does a better job (IMHO). 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.

The iPhone does have a couple of drawbacks as a camera.

Whereas the Canon allows me to take timed selfies, iPhone's Camera app does not have that feature. I corrected that problem quickly by obtaining camera apps (Top Camera and Camera+) that do include the self-timer function. Now I can take self-timed selfies.

The other drawback is the inability to use a tripod with the iPhone. Sure, you can take self-timed selfies without a tripod --- I've done it and it is a pain in the dupa. So I fixed that problem too by purchasing a tripod designed for cell phone camera applications: the Case Star Octopus Style Portable and Adjustable Tripod.

So you can count on seeing more and better quality selfies here in the future.

 

European vacation femulating.

 

Wearing DressBarn.