Being in front of the lens

At the end of 2022, I went through my camera roll to see what I had gotten up to throughout the year and I was surprised when I realised how difficult it was to find pictures of myself on my own phone. I had loads of photos taken around London and plenty of my friends but barely any photos of me.

The one photo I did have of myself was the one to the right and guess who took that…

I did.

I tend to lean more into self portraits when I really want to have a high quality photo of myself stored away somewhere. They allow me to have all the creative control and time I need to produce what I had envisioned intially. However, I do find that self portraits can not only be quite difficult to shoot in some cases, but also very tedious as you’re constantly walking back and forth to check on the composition and in some cases, the focus of the shot.

The photo on the right was taken with a Nikon D3200 and my plan was to get the evening light to shine through my blinds and create this cinematic type photo. Because this camera in particular had no flip screen or an app that I could use to monitor myself, most of my time was spent making sure everything was perfect before I missed the light which was a bit frustrating at the time but seeing how the pictures came out, perhaps the stress was worth it…

The photo on the left was taken with the Panasonic G85 and thanks to the autofocus features and the flip screen, the entire process was a lot easier compared to when I used the D3200. I also had a zoom lens this time instead of just a 50mm prime lens which allowed me to mess around with different compositions.

This might be controversial but I do think that self portraits sometimes lack in that same energy that is usually present when shooting with other people. So when I do get the opportunity to get portraits from friends that are also photographers, I’m asking with full chest.

These portraits were taken by my friend Jordan while we visited Barcelona in January.

My final message is to you guys reading this is don’t forget to take photos of your photography friends. Whether it’s with your phone, a disposable camera or a polaroid, don’t be the one to always hand the camera over to the photographer at the party especially if they’re also at that event to enjoy themselves…

With all this being said, I hope to look back at the end of this year and have my camera roll filled with photos of me, my friends and my family enjoying 2023 for all it brings.

So do what I’ve set out to do and make sure you document everything going on in your life so you can sit down and reminisce later :)