Last night, I had originally planned to attend an open mic night. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spectate or participate, but I ended up not doing either. I heard about some gross virus going around my son’s school, so naturally, I became paranoid that I was coming down with something. There were also strong winds destroying everything and wreaking havoc on the roads, so I figured a quiet evening studying some photo techniques would suffice.

The first technique/style I wanted to capture was bokeh. This is where the focus is on a certain object in the foreground, with an aesthetically pleasing, slightly blurry background. In most cases, the background is lights. I think too often, lights are just really pretty and interesting in photos, so I just shoot them as is without trying this. Here’s how it went:

Here are some fails:

I like how these turned out. I just set my camera to auto mode and tried to trick it into focusing on an object close to it, but as you can see, with eye/face detection it’s not always the best method. I really liked the fairy lights in the background. They look like a constellation.

The second technique that I’ve been inspired to try (I’ve seen it featured on some of your blogs 🫶) is a long exposure to create a creepy self portrait. Here, I switched over to manual and adjusted accordingly. I had to adjust quite a bit because I wasn’t giving myself enough time.

I would describe the first attempt as my fail (first photo in this series) but I’m happy with the rest. I can’t wait to do more with this and it makes me a little more confident in my understanding of the “exposure triangle”.

Lately, I’ve been avoiding taking pictures of myself and I don’t know why. I guess it’s this feeling that I’ve aged or look different than I remember. I know it’s absolutely absurd. I’m annoyed with myself for even thinking this or buying into the whole youthfulness = beauty culture. I know that comparatively, I’m young, but also understand that society deems anyone over 29 as old. It’s ridiculous.

It reminds me of this time my good friend and I went out for dinner and a nightcap. After an awkward incident with a man being rude to my friend, we went to the restroom and she broke down and cried, “I remember when I would enter a room and heads would turn, not a lot, but people would look at me. No one does that anymore. It’s like I don’t exist.” I’m sure I didn’t say much, because I was a younger woman without enough wisdom or experience to know how to respond. those words haunt me to this day and I feel so bad that I wasn’t more supportive or comforting or encouraging at the time. I understand that feeling a bit more these days. I spent a lot of my life being uncomfortable in my own skin and avoiding the gaze of other eyes that to miss it seems ironic. It reminds me of that cruel quote, “beautiful women die twice.” Why do women have to? Why can’t we transform into a different type of beauty, revered for our experience and wisdom? Let’s rebel by being ourselves in our perfectly imperfect states. We’ve wasted enough of this life living and displaying for others.

(I’ve linked my set up in previous posts, but I’ll add my dress and lights to this list. These are affiliate links.)

Fairy lights https://amzn.to/3YuJAlg

Red dress https://amzn.to/3EbpioZ

Lighting and backdrop (the one I bought is out of stock, but I used the video instruction for setup from this set, so I feel like this would be comparable.) https://amzn.to/3S3JT4b

Ring light https://amzn.to/3I32hpk

Fujifilm X-S10 (I’m not seeing the same kit I have but here’s the body.) https://amzn.to/3KcsjZQ