Transcripts
1. Intro: [MUSIC] When was the last time you took a photo of yourself? The last time you truly captured what you look like
through your own eyes. Much more than just a selfie, self-portraiture allows you to explore your own identity, and this can ultimately
lead to healing. You control your own narrative, and your images can be
reflection of that. My name is Idara Ekpoh, and I am a photographer and creative director based
in Phoenix, Arizona. I create captivating visual experiences through
what I like to think of as being dreamlike,
and cinematic portraits. My art is centered around storytelling,
identity, and healing. Throughout my journey, I have
learned that photography is much more than just a tool
to take pretty pictures. It's a medium that can be
used to tell our story. In this class, we'll be covering how to create
self-portraits for healing, and how they can be utilized as a tool to reclaim
your self-image. You'll learn how to
go from focusing on technique to becoming
a true storyteller, understand how you can use
vulnerability and emotion as a tool in your art,
source inspiration, prepare for it and shoot your own self-portrait,
and of course, how to bring your
images to life through editing in Adobe
Lightroom and Photoshop. These tools not only work
great for self-portraiture, but really in any aspect of
creating art that aims to evoke any emotion in your
audience through storytelling. It's perfect for creatives
that are looking for new ways to present
vulnerability, and emotion in their work. The inspiration
for this class is my recent projects,
self-portrait Sunday. Every Sunday I would take
a new self-portrait, which although very exciting, was an intimidating process. It really forced me to
face my own insecurities, and the things that was
the most vulnerable about. Self-portraiture has
allowed me to explore my identity through
visual storytelling, and has ultimately lead
to healing in my life, I have become my
own favorite muse. Regardless if you're beginner
or already a professional, I ask again, when was the last time you took
a photo of yourself? This class will give you
a new perspective of the photographer holding
the camera, you.
2. Your Project: [MUSIC] Today, we're going to
learn about how to take vulnerable and powerful
self-portraits. In the end, you'll be able to bring your own
self-portrait to life. As photographers, we oftentimes forget
to capture ourselves. We spend so much time
capturing our clients, our families, and
even our friends. But how often do we turn
the camera on ourselves? Self-portraiture is a powerful
tool that can allow you to unlock a level of
vulnerability in your work and
self-development as well. For this class, you'll
need any camera that you want to utilize
for your self-portrait. This can be a DSLR
or even an iPhone. Then you're also
going to need access to Adobe Lightroom
and Photoshop. Throughout this course,
you'll be able to create your own self-portrait, you'll learn different
techniques like how to create a mood board to source the
inspiration for your shoot. Learn about how you
can use vulnerability as a tool in your
self-portrait and obviously how to bring
it to life through your editing in Adobe
Lightroom and Photoshop. While you're learning,
don't forget to post your project in
the Project Gallery and post any questions you may have in the discussion
section of the class. In the end, I hope that you're inspired to continue to capture yourself and tell your own
story through self-portraits. Let's get started. [MUSIC]
3. Vulnerability & Self-Portraiture: [MUSIC] In this first lesson, we're going to
talk about how you can present vulnerability and emotion in your work that will ultimately lead to healing. So what does it mean
to be vulnerable with your self-portraits and
ultimately in your photography? Well, when it comes
to self-portraiture, just showing up and
sitting down in front of the camera is an
act of vulnerability itself. To be able to get the
courage to sit down and capture yourself is
vulnerability alone. Secondly, it's allowing yourself
to tell your own story. I truly believe that
we should be allowing our experiences to
drive our art and there is vulnerability in
telling your story and self-portraiture
is just one aspect of how you can
essentially do that. So this project really started off because
I was looking for ways that I can remain creative
from inside of my house. We're in this season
of isolation. We can't go anywhere. I can't create
with other people, so it really forced me to blur the lines of different roles. So I became not only
the photographer, but I was the subject. I was the "model". I was the hairstylist, I was the creative
director, the art director. I was even the makeup
artist you all. [LAUGHTER] I was
forcing myself to learn different ways to do my makeup and don't get me wrong like now, my makeup is to the t, but that whole process really forced me to find
ways that I can just embody all of these different roles that come together to create powerful art. It was a way for me to
be reminded that my art did not have to stop in
the middle of a pandemic. That I can really embody all
of these different roles. Really force myself
to grow as a creative and to force myself to look at things from a
different perspective. Like instead of just
being the photographer now I'm focusing on as a model, how can I position myself? What facial expressions
do I want to have? What ways do I want to pose? As a creative
director focusing on the overall message and
meaning behind the image, what elements am I including? What I didn't expect
this project to do was force me to really
look at my insecurities. As you guys can
probably imagine, taking a self-portrait every
single week is terrifying. I don't care what
nobody tells you it is terrifying [LAUGHTER] to
do that every single week, but it really forced me to look at the things that
I'm insecure about and find ways that I can really capture it and
remind myself that all of these things that
I'm insecure about are essentially beautiful and so I had insecurities such
as the texture of my hair, the hue of my skin, and also my facial features. These are things that I was
insecure about growing up, that I took and I made the main components of
each of my self-portraits. So essentially when I'm
looking at my hair texture, I'm insecure about this, but what ways can I style
my hair in ways that remind me that my kinky
foresee hair is beautiful. What ways can I
style it to convey a specific message of
natural hair in black women? Focusing on the hue of my skin and making sure
that I'm capturing my skin in a very beautiful
and cinematic way, especially in my editing. Lastly, struggling
with facial features. There's really no
better way to get over that insecurity than
forcing yourself to take a new self-portrait
every single week. Where these are close-up
self-portraits where I'm really forced to look
at the shape of my nose, my facial features,
my eyes, my ears. I remember growing up, I had a huge insecurity around my ears because
people made me feel like, oh, they're too tiny. So I took a self-portrait with a side profile that just
focused on the shape of my face and my
ears and reminding myself that those are beautiful
features that I have. So essentially all of these different
insecurities I had, I allowed myself to really revisit those insecurities
and remind myself that those are beautiful
features that I have that also can create
beautiful artists well. This project first challenged me to see myself in a
different light. As a photographer, I'm oftentimes challenged
with creating a safe space for my subjects
to feel comfortable so I can capture them in
the most authentic way, but then I realized I had
never done that for myself. I had never created a space where I could
feel comfortable and capture myself and who I
truly am in a portrait. Secondly, it really allowed me to challenge myself as
a creative as well, like I mentioned before. Now having the title of a
model or creative director, art director, all of
these different elements, all of these different
titles that now I possess, it really challenged me to
focus on different ways to view my art than just
the view of a photographer. It also forced me to try different ideas that
I may have been too scared to do
with other people. When you look at self-portraits, you really are the
only person there, so any ideas that you have that you want
to bring in life, you are in full control of it. So I was allowing myself
to try different things, and to try things that I hadn't
done previously in my art to grow as a creative
and at the end the day, if I didn't like it,
nobody needed to see it. It was just for me at
the end of the day. Then lastly, the project
really forced me to become comfortable with
myself and my own flaws. We all have flaws
as human beings and I think that
self-portraiture really allows you to take
those things that you consider flaws and
turn them into art and there's
beauty in art and there's beauty in telling
your own stories and there's beauty in allowing your experiences to be told through a photo
and through a portrait. So we'll go through
some different examples of my self-portraits. The first one I ever
took in this series was called At Home Bored and I remember I struggled
with the self-portrait because I was in general
struggling with quarantine. We are adapting to
this new way of life and I was struggling with
maintaining a routine. So I forced myself to
take a self-portrait because I wanted
to feel beautiful. In the midst of quarantine, I'm waking up and going to
sleep in the same pajamas. Like I'm not really
taking any time or energy to get myself ready because I'm
not going anywhere. So I really forced
myself to get dressed, do my makeup, and really
sit down in front of the camera and to capture
myself in that moment. My second most vulnerable
self-portrait I would say is my portrait
called A Black Woman. I remember this one being really really difficult
for me because I have never or at this
time I had never taken a picture with
my natural hair on my Instagram and I mean, my natural hair in the
full texture of an afro. So I forced myself
to pick up my hair, wear it in an afro and it was
a way for me to be reminded of the story of my hair and reminded of the beauty
behind it as well. Purpose of that
self-portrait was for me to show myself as
a black woman and in my truest form with my natural hair and
in its true texture, in an afro and really being
able to capture that and show the beauty in
my natural form. Lastly, Crown is one of my
favorite self-portraits. I remember again with the
story of wanting to take the insecurity I
have with my hair and really create
something beautiful. I wanted to create a hairstyle and show how my natural hair is beautiful and
all the different shapes and forms
that it can take. I remember wanting
to add the flowers as a element because,
I don't know, it was as if I was blossoming in that moment and as if I was
taking full control and ownership of this
hair that I have and just loving it in its so
many different forms. So I want to give you
guys different tips on how you can take
self-portraits. The first one is that you really want to
make sure that you're creating an environment
that allows you to feel safe and to feel comfortable to take your self-portrait
in the first place. Like I mentioned before,
as photographers, we do this for our subjects. We do this for our clients. We want to make sure
they feel at ease, so that way you can capture their truest and
authentic selves. You want to make
sure that you do that for yourself as well. I don't know if you
guys watch Insecure. Issa does this thing
where she goes into the bathroom and she
talks to herself in the mirror and so I
essentially would do that same thing every week
when taking my self-portrait. I am my biggest hype woman. So I go into the bathroom, look in the mirror,
I gas myself up, I say girl you're beautiful, you're this you're that, and that allows me
to feel good and confident and ready to
take that self-portrait. Next play your favorite music. A huge part of creating an
environment that you're comfortable and for me is
also incorporating music. So put on your
favorite playlist or whatever music
makes you feel the most comfortable and happy, and then play that so
that way you can feel comfortable when taking
your self-portrait. Then lastly, have fun. This is, at the end of the
day just for you and so allow yourself to be free and to truly capture yourself
in that moment. In the next lesson, we'll
talk about how to incorporate visual storytelling to create
a powerful self-portrait. I'll see you all there. [MUSIC]
4. From Technique to Storytelling: [MUSIC] Anyone can pick up a camera and take
a pretty photo but it takes more to take a
photo that tells a story. This is called
visual storytelling. You're probably
wondering what does it actually mean to take a technically good photo versus a photo that
tells a story? Well, the first thing is that
you want to make sure that you actually know the story
that you want to tell, and then secondly, you want to be able to
find ways that you're going to communicate that story through how you plan
for your shoots. In this lesson, we'll discuss
the ways that you can communicate your story through
visual stories telling. First off, how do you determine what story you want to tell? Like I've mentioned
in the last lesson, I think you do that
through letting your surroundings and
your own experiences speak through your art. Think about your own
personal experiences or even the experiences of those around you and determine what story you want to
tell through a photograph. When you know what
story you want to tell, you can now communicate that
story through the use of different elements such as your clothing and style choices, you can also focus
on the location and your set design and even utilizing color in a
way to tell your story. To give you a better
understanding of how this works, we're going to go through a
couple of different examples of my work and we'll talk about the different elements
that I brought together in my images to really help
tell that powerful story. In each of these photos, you'll see that there was
a level of intentionality with how I wanted to tell
each of these stories. In my photo series brother, I really wanted to focus
on how I could humanize the black male body
and highlighting the intimacy of the
black male bond. I really wanted to make
sure that I focused on my posing within this
photo set and making sure that they showed some bonding or togetherness between the men that were included in the shoot. My next image is from a series
that I called homecoming. This one is so dear to my heart. I had traveled back
home to Nigeria, I think this was
the first time I traveled back home as an adult. I had been as a kid
but being back as an adult and being able to have my camera and truly capture
the vibrancy of my culture. When I go back to when
I took this photo, I remember seeing how quickly
everything was moving. You have all the vehicles and
the Kekes that are moving quickly in the streets
and you have people that are trying to cross
the roads etc. In the moment they
felt there was a sense of chaos with
how quickly the cars are moving and people
trying to cross the streets but at the same
time everything was very, very uniform and I wanted to make sure I tried
to capture that. In this image you'll see that there's a sense of
chaos because you have all of these cars at one that are driving and
trying to pick up their passengers but everything
is still so uniform, you have each car
that's lined up in a uniform fashion
there that just makes it more powerful
and just seem like everything is working together
as it's meant to work. Another thing I
wanted to make sure I focused on was color. In the image, you'll
see that there is the orange vehicles, which is a great vibrant orange that is a perfect contrast with the blue skies and that
shows that there's a complementary
color relationship that's going on between
the two colors there. Then I have my self-portrait
called heaven said. Now, this self-portrait, I really wanted to
focus on making myself look like an angel
coming down from the clouds and so I utilize polyfill to mimic
the look of clouds, I had the backdrop that was blue with the clouds
on there as well and then I really focused on
in my editing making sure that the photo really literally
angelic and soft as well. What was your favorite
component of these images? What elements do you
think that you want to be intentional about and
incorporating into your art? I think that one of my favorite elements
to use is colors. Colors can really evoke a specific emotion in your audience and if you
want to get technical, that's through the
use of color theory. There are certain
color relationships that are meant to
work really well together that can really bring a sense of vibrancy and
life to your image. Essentially, colors
have meaning. Colors allow you to feel a
certain thing, for example, yellow is a color
that's associated with happiness and cheerfulness and then you have the color
red that's associated with love and passion but
at the same time, it's also associated
with pain and anger. Color can essentially be
utilized in your image to help communicate that story that you're
wanting to tell. I'll show you guys some
different examples of color relationships
in my art. There are four different
color relationships and those include complementary, analogous, triadic,
and monochromatic. When you're intentional about
planning for your shoots, you're able to create
photos that tell stories. What story do you want to
sell and in what ways can you use elements such
as your clothing, your set design, your
color in the photo? How can you use
those elements to really help bring
your image to life? To help you flesh out the
ideas that you have for the story that you want to
tell, in the next lesson, we're going to be
talking about sourcing inspiration and once you combine what you learned in that lesson with this lesson, you are going to be
on track to becoming a true visual storyteller [MUSIC].
5. Moodboard: Sourcing Inspiration: [MUSIC] Now that you know
what story you want to tell, you need to source
the inspiration that will help you
bring it to life. As a visual learner myself, it really helps me to take the ideas that I have
in my head and put it on a piece of paper or a document or
something of that sort. I like to use mood
boards as a technique to communicate the ideas behind the shoot that I'm working on. A way for me to take all of my ideas and put
them into one place. I create mood boards, whether I'm working
with myself for a self-portrait or I'm
working for a team. It's a really great way to make sure that everyone
involved really understands all of the different elements
that you want to focus on to help bring
your image to life. Here are some different
components that I really love to make sure that I incorporate
into my mood board. The first one is color. Like we mentioned
in the last lesson, you want to pick out
a color scheme or a color palette and make sure that you add that
to your mood board. That way you're constantly reminded of the color
palette that you have, and you can also find
really cool ways to take your color palette and have it show
up in your photos. Whether that is in
the outfit selection, the make-up, the
hair, the location, or set design, you can really take your
color scheme and be reminded of where you want to incorporate that color
throughout your image. The next thing is poses. Now, I now understand from
the perspective of being a model in my self-portraits
that posing is difficult. You want to do yourself
a favor and find different poses that you like and add them to your mood board, that way you can utilize them for art direction later
on in your shoot. Then lastly, you
want to be able to find any photos that
are going to be able to serve as inspiration for your shoot and add them to
your mood board as well. Before we dig into how
to create a mood board, I want to mention that all of this is just sourcing
inspiration. You do not want
to copy anything, you want to be able
to utilize it as inspiration to
create your own art. There's a number of different
places that you can source your inspiration from
for your mood boards. The first place is Pinterest. I know you already
know about Pinterest, so I want to remind
you to head over to Pinterest to utilize that
for your mood boards. There are so many
different images on Pinterest and the one
thing that I love is that you can quickly go
to the search engine, type in whatever
you're searching for, and then all of these different inspiration and photos
are going to pop up. The second source of
inspiration for me comes from music and film. When I think of some
of my favorite songs and favorite movies, oftentimes there's
inspiration that I can pull from those to
add into my photos. Another place that
you can source inspiration is just
from your surroundings. One of my self-portrait
is called Purple Rain. I remember the colors in
that self-portrait was literally inspired by the sky. [LAUGHTER] I remember I was
outside walking and we had these cotton candy skies outside and I
remember being like, I love the purple, the pink, and the blue and I want to take those colors and incorporate
into a self-portrait. Your surroundings can really
help to inspire the color or the feel that you have for your
self-portraits as well. I had used the
colors that were in my color palette for
things such as my hair. I saw the purple sky and
I wanted to incorporate purple on my hair or pink in
the blazer that I had on. I had blue in the
backdrop that I utilized and so I took the idea that came
from my surrounding, from me looking in
the sky and seeing these colors to now applying it to different elements in my self-portrait to help
everything come to life. Another component
that you want to make sure that
you're incorporating into your mood board and when planning for your
shoot is the styling. That styling with your clothes, your hair, your makeup, and really focusing on
what ways you can plan for those different elements to add to the story
that you're telling. For the self-portrait that I'll be creating
for this course, I'm going to go ahead and show you all what I came up with. Now we're going to go ahead
and create our mood board. This is one of my
favorite things to do, and I usually utilize two main platforms to
get my inspiration. First, we're looking
at Pinterest. This is really great
to just find really, any images that
can inspire you to get an idea of what it is that you might be able to create. Pinterest is the first platform. Now, the second
platform is Instagram. This is really great
because Instagram has the feature of saving
things to a board. You can save inspiration
photos that you see in your timeline to a
certain place and then be able to reference
back to them when you're ready to put your
mood board together. Those are my two main platforms for getting my inspiration. Today, we're going to go
ahead and utilize Pinterest. I'm going to go ahead and
search for rhinestone freckles. I think I really want to have some way that I
utilize rhinestones, and so I really like to find
images that inspire me. This is one of them. I'm really just going
to keep looking down on the Search
page and seeing what other images
mimic the placement of the right that I want
us to mimic freckles, and be able to see what
other images really give me that inspiration of
what I may be looking for. This really just
takes some time, just to search through images. This is another image I like, so I'm gonna save it to my
self-portrait Sunday board. That way I can already gather images that I like
into one easy space. Then I'm going to go ahead
and search for flowers. I don't really have
a specific idea for this now that we're going
into the springtime, spring slash summertime, I really want to
incorporate flowers. I'm trying to find
some poses that might help for how I can
sit and pose a flowers. I like this shot because the flowers are
close to her chest, so trying to see if I can find some inspiration photos
of things like that, or maybe the flowers framing
my subject or in the sense, me framing my face. I just keep searching for any images that might
stand out to me, that way I can save them
to my self-portrait board. This one I really like because
you can see that she's looking through the flowers so I think that I can do
something cool with that. Now, If you go back to my
Self-Portrait Sunday board, this is where I've saved
some of those images and I'm not actually going to make the mood board in this platform. What I'm going to do
is I actually want to save all of these
images to my computer. Right now what you're
seeing me doing, I'm just clicking on each photo and saving
them to my Downloads, that way I can then pull them later when I put my
full board together. The platform that I'm
currently using to make my mood board is Milanote. I love this because
it really allows you to quickly import images. It gives you text
boxes where you can easily just type
whatever it is you might be wanting to type and just being able
to make quick notes, but you don't have to
use this platform. You can use this, you can use Canva. You can literally go and open up Microsoft Word and put
some pictures together. You don't really have to
utilize a specific platform. I just like the way
this one works. If you look here, these
are some images I already had on my board that I pulled
from Instagram actually, of some poses that I might want to incorporate into my shoot. You'll see that here
I'm importing also the other photos that
you all just saw me pull from Pinterest. That way I can have all my
images sitting in one place. I usually try to have some
images of poses that I like. I also try to see if there's a specific make-up
look that I want, so the photo with the freckles, I know I want that look. I have two photos that
gave me that idea, as well as the flowers and some two different poses that I can do if I want a wider shot. I'm not sure if I want more of a wide shot or a portrait shot. Essentially, this is what my
mood board is looking like. I'm going to go ahead
and export this, that way I have an actual
image of what this looks like, that way I can have it saved to my computer and be able to reference back to it
when I'm ready to shoot. This is what my mood
board looks like. Like I mentioned before, I just really went
to pull some photo poses that really inspired
me for this shoot. I really want to do
something that feels really good for the
spring and summertime, so that's why I decided to go with the colors
pink and green. They just came to mind. There's really no
reason behind that. They look really beautiful
together and remind me of spring and Easter
colors and those pastels. I think those are
the two colors that I'm going to decide to
utilize for my shoot. You'll also see I
have some notes here that maybe the backdrop
can be either pink, then my dress can
maybe be green. Those are just some
ideas that I have. I haven't really at this
point gone through my closet. I'm just thinking of a dress that I might
be able to wear, which I know is green and I can pair it with the pink backdrop. Then I also love to incorporate tulle and so I might
go ahead and go shopping and look for
some pink tulle or some blush color tulle that
I can utilize in the photo. Of course, as you can see, reoccurring theme in
these photos is flowers. I just love incorporating
flowers into my images. There's just a sense
of growth, blossoming. That theme that I think is
present in a lot of my work, so I want to incorporate that into this self-portrait as well. I do know my hairstyle, I made a note of that,
is going to be up. I don't want my hair
blocking my face, especially if I'm going to have the flowers around
my face some way. I don't want my hair to block, so I'll wear my hair in a bun. Then I'm also going to utilize the adhesive rhinestones
to mimic freckles. I just think it looks so cute. There's really no reason for why I'm doing that outside
of it just looking good. Now that I have some notes
for my self-portrait, I now have an idea of the elements that I want
to source and I now have some images
that can be utilized as a reference for
when I'm shooting. Knowing again, I'm going to have those rhinestones
on my face. I really just want
my eyes peeking through and then the
flowers surrounding my face as well like I'm blossoming into a new
season essentially. That's the idea and theme that I'm going to go with
with this self-portrait. How did you find the
inspiration for your photo? Try these different techniques out so you can find ways to communicate the vision that you have for the story
that you want to tell. Now that you have
your mood board, you can effectively communicate the vision that you
have for your shoot. I want to encourage
you to print it out or to have it stored
somewhere digitally that you can easily
access when you are later preparing and shooting
your self-portrait. Make sure to share
your mood board in the Project Gallery
that way myself, as well as the
rest of the class, can get a sneak peek into what you are
planning for your shoot. [MUSIC]
6. Prep: Backdrop & Elements: [MUSIC] By this
point in this class, you should have a
clear understanding of the story that
you want to tell and even have a mood board that helps to
communicate that story. In this lesson, we're going
to talk about how I like to source elements that I
incorporate in my photos. The first thing that I usually start off with is by determining the location or even
a backdrop that I'm going to be utilizing
for myself portrait. I love to do this by a
number of different ways. The first thing is that if
I am utilizing a backdrop, I usually love to use
fabric backdrops. You guys, I don't know
what it is about fabrics, but there's a level of just texture and
dimension that it adds to your photo opposed to just using a plain,
seamless backdrop. That's my preference. But if you prefer to use
a seamless backdrop, go ahead and use that as well. If you're looking to utilize
fabric for your backdrop, I want to encourage you to go
to your local fabric store. I personally love to go to
the Jo-Ann fabric store. There are so many different
fabrics that they have there that I
love to choose from. Also, of course,
I'm keeping in mind the mood board that I have
when looking for fabrics, whether that's a specific color or texture that I want
to make sure that I'm incorporating but you want
to go ahead and go to a local fabric store so that way you can source
your backdrop. In the second case, if
you're not shooting at home, I want to encourage
you to get in your car and drive around
your neighborhood, drive around your city to
find a location that really speaks to the idea and the vision that you
have for your photo. Looking back at my mood board, you all remember that my
main colors are going to be pink and green as far as
pink being my backdrop, and green being my outfit. I'm going to decide
to go ahead and show you all the pink
backdrop I utilize. I just ended up going with this blush color
backdrop from Jo-Ann's. Now that you have your backdrop or maybe your location in mind, the next thing is to
focus on styling. Now, this can be as easy as
going into your closet and picking out an outfit that you may already have
for your portrait. You can use this as an
excuse to go the mall, do some online shopping to find an outfit that you want to incorporate into
your self portrait. This is the look that we're
going to be shooting today. As you can see,
I'm in the green. I think it's a nice
color contrast with the pink that I'll
be shooting against. You'll see that there. It's just a green turtle neck
dress that I got from Zara. This is what I'm shooting.
I also did my makeup. [LAUGHTER] I did my makeup. Essentially, what you guys saw in some of the
inspiration photos, I really wanted to have this crystal freckle
look. I did that. Then I also just put my hair in a bun just so it's
not in the way. Then I have these
pearl earrings on. I would have preferred to
have crystal earrings, but I couldn't find any, so we're going to
go with the pearls. You just really want to
make sure you use what you have if you don't want
to purchase anything. The last element that you want
to make sure that you are incorporating into your
photo is any kind of props. Props are really great because
they can really add to the overall message and
feeling of your image. Whether that is
you incorporating flowers or maybe there's a specific type of
prop that really helps to convey that
message further. Some different examples
of props can be flowers, or they can be boxes, or maybe anything else
that you feel that you may have laying around
your house that you want to incorporate
into your photo. When you're sourcing
for props as well, that you want to make sure that whatever you're
incorporating into your photo is adding to the photo and not
distracting your audience. If you find that
a prop is more so distracting than
beneficial for your image, remove it, you don't
need it, that is okay. Just make sure that if
you're adding props, that it's only adding
and it's not taking away from the overall
message of your photo. As you all can remember, the main prop in our photos
is going to be these flowers. I ended up again
going to Jo-Ann's and really looking at the
floral section to see what I wanted to pick up
and ended up going with this pink blush tone
flowers because I thought they would really match the spring vibe that
we're going for. That's really going to
show us that blossoming theme that we have in our image. I want to give you all an example of what
this can look like. We're going to look at
one of my self portraits called tea time. This self portrait was inspired by the Netflix series
called Bridgerton. I literally binge watch this series you all and
probably a day. I remember again, seeing
when you think about film and different
aspects of inspiration, you can really pull from those things and add
them to your photo. When you look at
this photo, some of the different elements I
sourced was the backdrop. I really wanted the flowers to be incorporated
into the photo. I also took this
tiara that I had. I won prom queen
back in high school, so I still had the tiara
laying around the house. I utilize that to give me
that sense of royalty. I remember while
watching Bridgerton, they always had these gloves on. I also went to Amazon
and I just purchased $5 gloves that quickly
came to my house the next day that I
can use in my shoot. Then lastly, it's
called tea time. What is British
royalty without tea? I made sure that I went into my mom's cupboard and I grabbed a teacup that I could also incorporate into the photo. Then all of these
different elements from the gloves to my tiara,
to the backdrop, and even the teacup
that I was holding, came together to help tell
that story of royalty again. That seems to be really present
in a lot of my artwork. But I really wanted to
make sure that again, because the self portrait was inspired by Bridgerton
I wanted to make sure that the themes
from that show were very clear in the image as well. Now that you have
your inspiration, it is time to prepare
for your shoot. Go ahead and head
over to the store. You want to go ahead and look
around your house to see what elements you might
have that you want to incorporate into
your self portrait, and I'll see you-all
in the next lesson. [MUSIC]
7. Setting Up: Lighting & Equipment: [MUSIC] In order to set
yourself up for success when shooting yourself portrait, you want to make sure
that you are shooting in the best environment and
with the best setup as well. There are two
different components that you need to make sure are in order before shooting
yourself portrait. Those two things include your lighting and
your equipment. For lighting, I love
to use natural light. Y'all, the sun is free. If I'm shooting
inside of my house, I try to face an open window or some open lighting that's
coming into my house. That way I have even
lighting going all across my face and body
for myself portrait. If you're not shooting inside
your house and maybe you're shooting outside or
maybe in the garage, you just want to make sure that you are facing the lighting in a direction that
is giving you that even lighting all
across your body. If you don't have any
access to sunlight for whatever reason or maybe you're shooting later on the day, you can incorporate studio
lighting, soft boxes, or whatever else that
you might have access to to provide that
lighting for your image. You want to make sure
that your lighting is even if that's the
look you're going for, if you're going for more of a harsh lighting or
whatever the case might be, you can play around
with the sun, play around with the different lighting equipment
that you might have to give you that
different look for your image. The second thing is equipment. For myself portraits, I will show the
equipment that I use, but you do not need to
use the same equipment. I usually like to
shoot on my Canon 60, or I also utilize my Canon EOS R if I want to
utilize that camera instead. If you don't have a Canon camera or a camera of that sort
that you want to use, you can also use your phone. I have taken plenty of self portraits on my
iPhone and I find that to be a very easy and
convenient piece of equipment. Utilize the phone that you carry around in your
pocket as well. The next thing is
that you want to make sure that you have a tripod. Whether you are using
a phone or a DSLR, you want to make sure
that your camera is steady and sitting
on your tripod perfectly well so that it's sitting in place
for your image. The next thing
would be a remote. I love to use this Amazon Basics remote that I got from maybe $9. You can utilize that or find any remote that
works best for you. This is great. That way, the remote would go ahead and trigger the shutter button
for you so you don't have to go back and forth
between where you're sitting for your portrait
and your camera. Then lastly, you
want to make sure you have a backdrop stand, especially if you're
using a backdrop like fabric or seamless paper, you just want to make sure that you have something that will hold that fabric
perfectly for your photo. Here I am just setting
up for myself portrait, as I mentioned before, one one piece of
equipment that I like to use is this backdrop stand. Now, it's not the best
or the prettiest, but it gets the job done. I got it from Amazon. It was quite inexpensive. You can head over
to Amazon to find some backdrop stand options. With my backdrop stand, you'll notice that there
are two clips on there. That's some other equipment
that I like to use as well. It came with the stand. That way, you can
go ahead and clip your fabric onto
that stand properly. That way it'll hold your fabric together and so you don't
have to worry about, especially when
you're using fabric, you don't have to worry
about it sliding off of the backdrop stand. Yeah, that's the setup that
I had for this portrait. That's the lighting and
the equipment that I like to utilize for myself portraits. It doesn't have to be extensive. It can be very simple. I remember for the longest time, I did not have a tripod, so I would utilize
literally a stack of books and put my camera on the stack of books and I would
shoot that way, so then just utilize whatever
it is that you have. In general, don't
get caught up on the equipment that you
do or you do not have. Your equipment doesn't
make a good photo, you make the good photo. Focus on that when you prepare for shooting
yourself portrait. [MUSIC]
8. Shooting Your Self-Portrait: [MUSIC] Now you're ready to
shoot your self portrait. Once you have sourced
all of your elements, you've gotten your inspiration, everything is in order. You're ready to sit down, get in front of the camera
and take your portrait. Before you start
shooting there are a few things that I want
you all to keep in mind. The first thing is to
make sure that you have enough space to shoot with. If you're shooting outside, that might not be an issue, but if you're shooting
inside your house, just make sure you have enough
space for your backdrop, your backdrop stand, as well as wherever your camera is placed. Once you figure it out that
you have enough space, you want to make sure that
your backdrop is in order. Make sure that it is sitting securely on your backdrop stand, or if you don't have a stand, just make sure that you
hang up your backdrop on a wall or whatever it might work best
for your portrait. Then you also want
to make sure that your camera is secure as well. If you're using a tripod, make sure that it's
staying properly. If you're using a stack
of books as well, just make sure that
your camera is secured. We do not want any
broken equipment. For your camera, if it's
sitting on a tripod, you can really play around with the perspective of
the shot as well. You can focus on having a
straight on if you would like, or you can shoot from higher or maybe a lower angle as well. Just to give you a different
perspective for your photo. You just want to make sure
again that your camera is secure in whatever
setup it's sitting in. Lastly, make sure that you have your remote handy
and ready to go. We're going to go
ahead and do now. I'm going to show
you all some BTS of the self portrait that
I shot for this course. The first thing
that I always try to make sure that I
do when I'm shooting, is that I'm shooting
in open space. You can see here and please ignore the little
pasta bag there. But you can see here this is a pretty open space
that I'm shooting in. It's just our upstairs loft. You want to make sure
you have enough space to be able to shoot in. That's just going to
really make sure that you have enough space
for your photo. Then that is what we have, and then you also see here that we are shooting with
a large open window. This is really great because
well the window isn't open. But a large window,
I'm going to open these panels up in a bit
to get some more light. But you want to
have a large window if you're shooting inside just to have some natural
light for your photos. I don't use any kind of
studio lighting just because I just don't have any. This is what I usually go to
and do for my photo shoots. All right, guys. This is what the setup is going to
look like for today. I'm going to flip
the screen over. Having the screen is actually
really great because you really get to see
what you're shooting, which is really great
for self portrait. I have my f-stop at 2.2. I might actually increase that, sorry for the focus. I might actually increase that because I do want to make
sure I see all my elements. Then I have my ISO if you
can see there at 500. That is what that looks like. That's kind of the angle
I also want to shoot at. I really like this
downward angle. I'll go over there in
that open spot there. To give you all a bit more
perspective on my settings. There are three main elements, you have your shutter speed
which I usually keep on 125. F-stop, I'm going to
probably put that around 2.8 or between two and 2.82. Then you also have your ISO. Now this is the biggest setting. You want to make sure that
it's low enough or high enough to make sure your
image is lit properly. As you can see there, I can see the backdrop, I can see the grass. Then again you mess
around with that ISO to get it to the right
setting for your lighting. Here I'm shooting
myself portrait. Now the key to this is just to shoot as many poses as you can. It can tend to feel a bit silly. I definitely try to take
some breaks in between and really just encourage myself
throughout the process. I also do look at the images as I'm
going through as well. But really the key is
just to get as many different poses as I can to have some variety in my images. As you all can see here, there are a number of
different poses I have. I have somewhere I looked away. I have some where I had
more of the flowers as the focal point in
the image and I do like the blurriness
in this shot. One when I was looking
directly into the camera. Again, just really trying to have a variety of
different poses and looks that I can then refer back to when I'm picking
my favorite photo. Now we're ready to go ahead
and take your self portrait. But before you get started, I want to remind you that
this is all for fun. There is no need to
have any kind of stress or bad energy
around the self portrait. Play some music,
whatever makes you feel loose and good, okay? Make sure you go
in the bathroom. Give yourself a whole mirror hype session
if you need to, do whatever it takes
to make sure that you show up as your best self
for this self portrait. [MUSIC]
9. Editing Your Self-Portrait: [MUSIC] Now that you've finished shooting
your self-portrait, it is time to edit. Let me tell you all,
this is my favorite part of the entire process because I really get to be
creative and see what ways I can really
bring my image to life. In my editing, I'll be utilizing both Adobe Lightroom
and Adobe Photoshop to give you all a quick
view of what I'd like to do when editing
my self-portraits. If you don't already
have these applications, go ahead and head over
to Adobe Creative Cloud. That way you can
go ahead and get all the access to both
lightroom and photoshop. Now that I have
my self-portrait, I really love this image because
it's so angelic already. One thing we're going to focus on is editing in lightroom. We're going to focus
on two specific areas. The first one being
the Basics tab. This is really great
for focusing on the overall exposure
of your image. It's great to focus on the exposure contrast in certain areas to make sure
that the lighting is correct. Then the second area is
focusing on the Color Wheels, which I really love this for overall color grading for
my images in Lightroom. This is really great for
adding colors to your shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. I think what I really love about this is that it really helps to make my images seem more
dreamlike and cinematic. When I say that, that just means that I'm focusing
on the tones that I add to the image in order to add more depth to my photo. If I wanted something
that added more drama, I could add more colors into my shadows or midterms
highlights like I mentioned before or
sometimes I like things that are a little
bit lighter airy and so I'll focus on my highlights
and how I can add maybe a blue or a green tones and make things feel
a little bit lighter. This is a really
great tool to utilize in Lightroom so
that you can focus on how you can really impact the overall tone and
feel of your image. Then the other tool that
we're going to utilize, it's going to be
in Photoshop and this is called Selective Color. I find this to be really great also when it comes
to color grading, just because you can target specific colors in your photo. If I wanted to look at the red, I could focus on
changing the cyans, the magenta, the yellows, all of those colors
specifically in the reds. You can really play around
with the tooling and get some really cool
effects in your photo. Now we are in Lightroom
and I'm going to be showing you how we're
going to edit this image. One thing I'd love to do is obviously focus on
the Basics tab. This is really great to figure out the overall
lighting for the image. I don't have a science to this, I just mess with each slider until I get a look that I like, mainly focusing on
exposure contrast, and then anything else is
just adding at that point. I also go down to the tone
curve to also mess around and get some looks for my
overall exposure as well. Then we'll be going over some different sections
as well in Lightroom. I'm going to go
back to exposure, maybe lower it a
bit and we'll look at what a before and after
of this image looks like. You can already see
the slight evidence. You can already see the slight edits that we're
starting to make. I'm going to lower that exposure because it's a bit overexposed. This is what we have currently. Then I'm going to
make my way down to the Color Wheels that
I talked about before. This is really great to add
colors to your highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. Again, I don't have
a system to this. One thing I always
love to do with the highlights as you
can see I'm doing now, I love to add a green or a
blue tone to my highlights. It just helps to make the photo look a little bit
more dreamlike. Then I usually go into my mid-tones and
add maybe a yellow, orange, a reddish color. That's what I'm doing currently, just to see what color I feel
fits best with this image. But you just really
play around with these three wheels just to get an idea of what you
really like but you also want to be mindful
of the skin tones. As I'm messing around with
these highlights and as well as my mid-tones you are seeing
my skin tone is changing. We'll fix that when we go
into photoshop because I don't want to look too
red, orange, or yellow. I want to make sure I still look the same complexion
that I have in real life. Now we're going to export
our photo and go into photoshop and this is where we will continue our color grading. I always make a
duplication of my layers. What I'm going to do first
is some skin editing. This is a technique called
frequency separation, but it's just a way to clean up some blemishes or
things like that that I might have my face to give
me a more clean look. Again, I don't do too much, just something slight
just to make sure that my overall skin looks
smooth and clean. That is essentially
what I'm doing here. I had a little pimple that I wanted to make sure
that I got out. That is frequency separation and then we're going to go
into the color grading. I love to use selective
color and image before you can pick a color and mess with certain enclosed
within that color. As I mess with the sliders, you can see how it's
adding and removing that color in my photo. I can add science, I can remove the
science and the reds. I can add magenta, remove the magenta from the
reds, yellows, black, etc. Again, no science to this, I just mess around with this
until I get something that I like but I'm mainly
looking at my skin tone. When you look at skin, there are three main
colors which are yellow, oranges, and reds. You'll see I'm going
to make my way over to the yellows that way I can
get my skin complexion to a specific spot that I really like and that I feel is
true to my real life. That is what I'm
currently doing now. It's just messing with
those sliders there. I think I'm getting
close to what I want. I think when I go into another section it might
help with the overall look, but I think this
looks good currently. Then the other thing
I want to point out, I am doing these on different layers just so that
I can be able to see the before and after of each change I'm making
in these colors. Next, we're going to go ahead
and go down to our whites. This is going to impact
the color and the whites, aka, also known as
the highlights. This really helps to
make my images look very dreamlike like
I mentioned before. I like to add yellows
as well as some blues into my whites to make
it look that way. Then we're going to go ahead and do the same with the blacks. Blacks is focusing
on the shadows. You can add colors into
your shadows to see how it impacts the overall
look of your image. What I'm also doing
here is reducing the opacity and the
fill so that way it's not so in your face I wanted to be a little
bit more subtle. That is great now the before and after of what we've
done in photoshop. Then I'm just going
to go ahead and merge some of these layers
and do some cleanup. I realized I have some
residue in my hair, I think it was from
my gel that I use. I want to clean that up. I don't want you to see
that in the final image. I'm just going to use my
clone stamp tool to go ahead and clean out some
of that in my hair. Then one more area that I want to add on here
is Color Lookup. When you utilize Color Lookup, there are a number
of different presets that you can add
to your photo and just see how they
impact your photo. I added this Moonlight, which I like to add at
times, no reason for it. I just liked the way it
looks and you can select these different blending modes to see what you like the most. I like Pin Light and
I'm just going to lower the opacity and
the fill of that. That way again, it is not
too blue like it was before. It's just adding to my photo, not taking you away from it. Now we're back in lightroom and the image that we
edited in photoshop was going to import itself
back into here so that we can see the before
and after of this image. You'll see in the
before here what we actually started with as well as the after of what we did in both lightroom
and photoshop. I feel like this
is really light, airy, and vintage as well, which tends to be
a little bit of a vibe that I go with
and some of my photos. That's what the before and
after of this image looks. Again, referring back
to my mood board, I have the freckles
on my face which I utilize that had said
for any stones for. I also wanted the
flowers somewhere up and close to my face and really
the focus being on my eyes. I really liked
that with the idea of blossoming into a new season. Again, utilizing the colors of green and pink as they
work really well. I hope you guys enjoyed
this tutorial and I also hope that you
were able to bring your own image to life as well. Go ahead and post yourself portrait in the project gallery. That way I can check it out as well as the
rest of the class. [MUSIC]
10. Conclusion: [MUSIC] Congratulations, you
have made it to the end. I am so proud of you all for making your way
throughout this course. We learned about how
vulnerability can add to your images and
how you can go from being just a technical
photographer to a visual storyteller. We learned how to
create mood boards and gather inspiration and really place everything into one space so we can be really, really prepared for a
shoot and be able to communicate the vision that
we have for a shoot as well. I showed you all
how I like to take my self portraits as
well as how I like to bring my images
to life through my editing in Adobe
Lightroom and Photoshop. Now, if there's one thing that I want you all to take
away from this class is that presenting
vulnerability and emotion in your artwork is going to
help you lead to healing. When I look at my journey as a photographer and my
journey through healing, essentially,
self-portraiture has played a huge role in that. Like I mentioned before, I was able to take my insecurities and place them
as the main components of my portraits and really
forced myself to look at these things that I was insecure about and really see
the beauty behind them. Now that you all have
completed the class, there are a couple
of things that I want you to do
before you head out. The first thing is to
make sure that you post your self portrait in the
project gallery y'all. I want to make sure that I see yourself portrait and I went the rest of the class
to get the opportunity to see them as well. If you enjoyed this class, go ahead and leave a review, share it with a friend, and make sure you go ahead
and give me a follow on Skillshare so you can be
notified of my next videos. Then lastly, head
over to Instagram. Give me a follow on
Instagram @Ohyeahitsidy. That way you can engage
with some of my work. If you decide to post yourself
portrait on Instagram, go ahead and use
the #IdyTaughtMe, that way I can engage
with their photo, share it with my audience, and I just would love to see you all over there in
Instagram world. Until next time, keep practicing and shooting
self portraits. Remember that this is
a time for you to have that self-discovery and to really present
yourself in your art. I truly hope that this class
has inspired you to capture yourself and to find new ways to be
vulnerable in your art. I'll see you all soon. [MUSIC]
