It was a Thursday morning a couple of weeks ago and the last day of summer Mother's Day Out for our two boys.  (I love them but we all need a little break from each other during the summer!)  I started getting the itch to take some pictures but wasn't in the mood for still life and it was just too darn hot to photograph outdoors.  So I gave myself a rather unique assignment; I decided to do a self-portrait.  Last time I tried a self-portrait, which was several years ago, it was a miserable failure. It was in the days of film so I couldn't see what I was getting while I was in the process of taking the shots.  In the digital age, however, it is a bit easier.
 
To prepare, I had a photo background, which I draped on the sofa and up high on the shutters behind the sofa and actually over the corner of a portrait of my youngest hanging on the wall.  You could use a large sheet and achieve the same thing.  I wanted it to look like more of a studio shot than just a shot of me on my sofa with the distracting elements above and behind.  I set up a studio light with a softbox (a big diffuser over the light to make the light soft) and let the light come in the window on my hair.  I then mounted my camera on a tripod and set up the number of seconds I wanted in between pressing the shutter button and actually taking the photo.  I chose 10 seconds.  You may want more, but probably not less than that.
 
I found the hard part was getting a good focus.  (I like a somewhat shallow depth of field and wanted to shoot at an f-stop at about 4 or 5.6.)  So I had to put something in the set-up about where I imagined my head to be and pre-focus on it.  (Because my head is living proof that one size hat doesn't fit all, this wasn't that difficult.)  Then I took the camera off auto-focus to lock the focus.  I removed my focus items (high contrast pillows) and then pressed the shutter button to trigger the timer.  I ran over to the sofa, sat down, and the camera, after 10 seconds, took a shot. 
 
Then I got up and looked at the photo.  I repeated this process a number of times.  Sometimes the top of my head was chopped off. Sometimes I was way off center.  Sometimes I had a goofy look on my face.  Each time I went back to sit on the sofa, I re-adjusted my pose to get what I wanted.  I put a photograph of my family close by to look at so I could think pleasant thoughts while I was doing this.  (Luckily, I was not angry with anyone that day, so this worked fine.)  Below is the one I got that I thought looked the most like me:

 

 
Now, I take back what I said before that the hardest part was getting the focus right.  Actually, the hardest part (at least emotionally) was looking at myself at 200% in photoshop and seeing every wrinkle, blemish, and strangeness in my face.  Yes, I did touch this photo up a little and then put a "grunge" effect on it, (because you know I am soooo grunge.)  Next, I googled "plastic surgeon".  Know a good one?
 
Seriously, the reason I am telling you this it three-fold.  First, if you want to get better at photography, do self-assignments or join a club and enter regular themed contests to force you to shoot things you wouldn't normally shoot.  For example, join the Plano Photography Club (www.planophotographyclub.com).  They have monthly contests.  I learned a ton from entering the contests and hearing the judges' comments.  Plus, I made some new friends who were incredibly helpful and supportive.

 

Second, even though you might not have all the photo equipment I have, you can do this with available light.  Go outside at a nice time of day, set up your tripod, and give this a try.  Have the sun come in for side lighting about an hour before sunset.  Or shoot in shade with a bit of fill flash from your camera.  You can do a self-portrait without any help at all, I promise.  And it's great practice to figure out how to pose people, what it feels like to be posed, what feels natural, etc.

Third, you get a good leg workout from getting up and sitting down so many times.
 
Good luck!  Send me your self-portraits!  I'd love to see them.
 
Dawn