I am completely new to photography, but I have been experimenting widely with different subjects. So far I have been pleased with results from color photos of cars and slides of nature photography. However, I recently tried taking black and white self portraits, but without much luck.

My problems start with setting up the shot, in terms of focusing (how do I focus on myself when I am behind the camera?!)and lighting. Also I have been disappointed with the lack of contrasts. What I hope will turn out black usually turns up as dark grey, and what I would like to turn up more as white turns out light grey. Any help on technique would be much appreciated.

I currently use a Nikon N70 with a Tamron 28-300mm lens, and regular 100 B&W film with a tripod and the camera's own timer.

-- Gruf Adams (Grufnik@hotmail.com), October 16, 1998

Answers

Self portraits are alot of fun. In a studio situation I have used this dummy head I got from the NY Institute of Photography about a million years ago and place it on a broom handle, then lean it against the chair where you will be sitting and prefocus and look at the lighting. A sample of this I did using this is at http://www.computer-concepts.com/~zonie/Jeff.jpg . The original is a Polaroid and really looks much nicer than this version. Lack of contrast is probably more in how it is processed or maybe from underexposure. The other possibility might be from light flaring in your lens, a lens shade may cure this.

-- Jeff White (zonie@computer-concepts.com), October 16, 1998.

Self-portraits certainly have problems of focusing and composition. A stand-in head is a neat idea. Or you could measure the distance from your head to the film with a tape-measure, and focus with the lens scale.

If you can remove the pentaprism, you can use blu-tack to attach a small mirror, so you can see the ground-glass in the reflection.

For the contrast, you will get lots of ideas from the companion forum, "B&W Photo: Films & Processing". If you do it yourself, then the basic idea is to increase the contrast by developing for longer, and possibly decreasing the exposure a little.

-- Alan Gibson (gibson.al@mai.dec.com), October 17, 1998.

I recently did a series of self portraits and found a stand-in person to be a very easy way to do get composition and focus. It also helped quite a bit with the lighting.

A long cable release with an air bulb is a better way to do this than a self-timer. The self-timer creates a situation in which you hurry to place yourself in the proper position.

While your contrast problem could be caused by film development, it is also possible that it could be printing.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeffs@hyperreal.org), October 17, 1998.

I've used an extra light stand, and a metal tape measure as two different stand-ins. I normally use an air release (20 ft) since few of my cameras have self timers.

Keep lighting simple to start with. Open shade is always a good start. Light from a large north facing window, or outdoors right after sunset (or before sunrise, I suppose) also work well.

Contrast problems can be either film exposure (underexposed), film processing (under developed) or printing. If you're not developing the film yourself, I would suggest starting off with Ilford's XP-2 or Kodak's TMAX CN400 (I think that's what it's called). They are C-41 process just like color negs. Rate either at about 200 and you should get pretty good negs. Much commercial - especially non custom - B&W processing is rather poor these days.

-- mike rosenlof (mike_rosenlof@yahoo.com), October 19, 1998.

Since Coffee is a large part of my existance, I once did a shot of my reflection in a steaming cup of coffee. I set it up as a standard cup of coffee still life, the camera pointing down so you could see the top surface of the cup of coffee. Then I stood so that I could see the reflection of the lens in the coffee to get the angles to match. Depth of field was a problem so I focused on the reflection trather than the still ife, sacrificing sharpness there knowing that the viewr would be able to figure out what the out of focus stuff was and also focusing thier attention (I hope) on the important reflection. I had to make quite a few exposures though as the steam obscured the reflection.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 23, 1998.