I LOVE the lens that captured these images. This lens is my bestest paintbrush. Talking about paintbrush, take a look at my talented sister inlaw’s artwork. And the beautiful images of Traveler’s Lunchbox too.

I pulled these shots from the archives that I entered two years ago for the self portrait challenge. The challenge was to snap a photo of oneself looking silly. For this challenge I squeezed my head into one of the kids’ hat and had the kids snap my reaction to it. So it’s not really a true self portrait and it’s more than one shot but I think the images together tell a “silly” story. Taking self portraits is something that a photographer does to explore his or her own emotions. More often it is something a photographer leans towards doing when there are no models to experiment with in order to explore different techniques. Take 18 year old Lara Jade for instance. I love Lara’s work, but I would have to say that she is her best model. She is so talented. Another is Roxann Arwen Mills. Good lord I love her work. She takes photography to a higher level. This image of her would have to be my favourite image ever.

The reason for this post however, isn’t about taking self portraits. It’s about our eyes. Over the Christmas New Year’s break I watched three full episodes of America’s Next Top Model. I’m quite critical when it comes to watching reality shows, but I really enjoyed this one for the things I learned about photography. I also enjoyed the challenges that each model was faced to do that determined who would make the cut. One of the challenges required that the girls go on a “go see.” This is where the girls visit with designers to see whether the designers like them or not to model their clothes. One designer was in fact an actor posed as a designer. Her job was to critique the girls, albeit rather harshly. Directly after her critique the girls were given a photo session where they were asked to smile. The results were that the girls who didn’t take to the criticism took bad photos even when they normally take great ones. The girls who withstood the criticism did better in the shoots. You can smile with your mouth but your eyes can say something else.

When time came to stand before the panel of judges, the girls were given the advice: That their faces portray how they feel. Let criticism affect you, they were told, and it will affect your work. Sometimes it’s hard to smile after one is given a bad critique but the challenge is to not let the criticism affect you on a personal level. Then Tyra, Miss supermodel herself and the host of the show, talked about smiling and smiling using only our eyes. Can you smile using only your eyes? The way to do it is to think good thoughts. Think of something that makes you happy. Or not let bad thoughts enter your mind. Easier said than done. Which is my next challenge for when I take a self portrait. I will work to capture it on film if I don’t think it a good idea in general. Smiling with only my eyes and not letting a bad critique affect me on a personal level. Now that’ll make a good resolution.