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behind the scenes: what do your thoughts look like? (a self portrait)

See the whole series here.

Recently I took my first business trip EVER. I was filled with nothing but gratitude the whole time and came home with my head heavy with new knowledge. It was fantastic. I was gone from home for six nights, which meant that I had five-days worth of clothing to pack into my small carry-on suitcase and no space whatsoever to spare for my camera.


During morning and afternoon breaks the training conference host provided big trays of snacks and finger food goodies. They also offered humungous apples and bananas in heavy bowls, and I almost dropped the bloated apple I picked up.

Then I knew.

During the morning break I made three sketches and snacked on some leftovers in my hotel room while I brought them to life. With what camera, you say? The only one I had: my iPhone 5. With what tripod, you ask? I stuffed the phone between the cushions of a chair and propped it up in place with a rolled up magazine. I would have taken a picture of it but my only camera was, of course, in use. With how many apples, you say? Just one.

Here's how I did it.

  1. Once the phone was in place, I set the timer (yes, iPhone cameras have timers in recent iOS versions in case you didn't already know), walked into place. Click.
  2. Then I reset the timer, moved the apple and stepped out of the way. Click.
  3. I repeated step two until I had apples in all the places I wanted one and then emailed all the pictures to myself so I could edit them during the afternoon break.
  4. I layered the images in GIMP and erased the apples (and my third arm--maybe you didn't notice it before...) into the top layer.

BEFORE
AFTER
The images (left) aren't a true before and after because there are images in between, but this is what the colors and positioning looked like right out of camera.

Usually I don't like selective color. The process to complete it is rudimentary, far too common and often distracts from the picture (in my opinion). But because I was using color to tell a story rather than simply draw attention to an object, in this situation it just felt right.

What does it all mean? I'll let you decide. :)

See the whole series here.

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