Gustav Hoiland

By: gustavHoiland

Jan 14 2010

Category: self portrait

1 Comment

Figured it was time to get a website setup for myself to share photography and other information.  Should have a “@gustavhoiland.com” email address setup soon enough.  The intended purpose for this site is to share photography with friends/family/interested persons and also basic contact information and perhaps resume/work related info.  Additionally I hope this’ll motivate me to write about my imaging work, both old and new, in order to become better versed in writing about visual material or “art” at large.

So about the photo.  I love people in photos, in that they bring a story and often times a deeper meaning to an image than props or non-people’d photos, but I’m not particularly good with people photography.  I’m  terrible at making people feel comfortable, directing them, etc… (something I hope to work on and hopefully become very good at), so in the mean time I shoot self portraits.  I picked up an external flash (Nikon SB-600) while in Shanghai to experiment with lighting and hopefully motivate myself to shoot strangers’ portraits (that’s a whole ‘nother story), so that’s what this shot was lit with in conjunction with some daylight.  I only shot this because I thought my hair had achieved some form of greatness after brushing it.  Color’n levels have been messed with in Adobe Camera Raw. I like all the imperfections in it, notably the grey dots from dust on the lens and the highlighted hair coming over the forehead.  Stuff easily “fixed” in photoshop, but … I think it gives it some aesthetic of not being a professional shot.  Really nothing more than placing a flash on a shelf on my right and taking a dozen or so timed shots.