Over the last few months, the themes for the Self-Portrait Challenge, for the most part,  haven’t inspired me to participate. This month’s theme is “Absurdities” and again I was left with little enthusiasm for the topic. But then I went to the basement carrying a load of dirty laundry, turned on the light and saw that there was already a freakin’ mountain of laundry waiting for me. The first thing I thought was “oh this is absurd,” well, not exactly, it was peppered with expletives but nevertheless, I realized I had found something I could take a picture of.

What’s worse was that I knew there were two more baskets of dirty laundry upstairs waiting to join in the fun. How two and a half people can generate this much laundry is also absurd. Where is it coming from for Pete’s sake? How does it accumulate so fast? It seems I wash and wash and wash, but nothing goes away - ever.

This photo is more boring/average than I usually like to use for a self-portrait and it doesn’t do the pile justice either. My tripod is broken so I could only shoot resting the camera on a box from this point of view. If I’d been able to get a better angle it could have looked so much more imposing. Eh, excuses excuses, whatever.

There’s no story to go with this one per se, just a lot of working into the wee hours of the night.

The potentially tacky rainbow was in the original sky shot. I was going to take it out, but then I decided it worked for some reason. Well, it’s no worse than the stupid shirt I’m wearing. I thought that I was just going to take a regular old photo tonight so I didn’t put any thought into my wardrobe or makeup. I like how it turned out any way, even though I wish I had at least put some mascara on.

Visit SPC for more blue portraits.

It’s been a few months since I’ve been inspired or had enough time to participate in the Self-Portrait Challenge so I guess I’m ready to give it a shot again. I was having a great hair day and I haven’t had one of those in ages so I thought, quick get the camera before it gets big and scary again. Ironically, after I was done processing the photo I ended up cropping out most of it anyway, oh well, it gave me some motivation and that’s what counts.

You may look at this little section of hair and ask yourself, “that’s a good hair day?” Yes, for me it is an excellent hair day. On most days, being home alone with only the dogs and the wee boy to look at me, I don’t put a lot of effort into taming the mop. As my father would say “it looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.” Hey, maybe an upcoming SPC theme could be “insanity,” “the lost mind” or “on the verge.” I’d be ready for a photo shoot at any given moment of any day, no pre-planning required.

So here ’tis, my good hair day blue entry:

I can’t let a month go by where the SPC theme is “bathrooms” without including our nightly ritual. The wee boy loves his bubble baths!

He loves them so much he decided to make his own toys soon after I took this shot.

Here I am spotting “fudgy the whale” under the bubbles (if you catch my drift).

Continuing on with this month’s “bathrooms” theme, I have decided to reveal that my eyebrows require constant attention. Were I not to possess considerable topiary skills, I would look like I’m wearing a brown velvet headband.

The cool thing is that I have so much to work with I can sculpt them into many different shapes. I can create subtly different looks to my face by changing their angle, position and density. During my great depression I went a little nuts with the reshaping. I created very angular, drastic eyebrows. I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish but it gave me a much harder look. When I was in college, I left them fuller which produced a much kinder look. I was fine with this until one too many Brezhnev jokes were cracked.

Last month I decided that since I feel my forehead is schlunking down over my eyes, I should start to remove more from the bottom to give the illusion that they’re still as high as they used to be. I’m letting them be a tad fuller and I’m keeping a slight angle but erring more on the side of a curve, trying to blend the best of all my previous styles. 

(Shown here with the best tweezers I’ve ever owned, it’s very hard to find tweezers that actually work.)

Hmmm, I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about this much before, certainly not my thought process surrounding the issue. I wonder if it’s because it’s something that I do by myself in the privacy of my bathroom every day - my own personal obsessive-compulsive moment that didn’t need sharing. Nah, I share most everything, I make fun of most everything, I must have just overlooked this topic somehow.

For more bathrooms, visit SPC.

I’m a week late starting this month’s SPC theme of “bathrooms,” but better late than never I suppose.

Here I’m showcasing my 80+ year old useless sink. There are seperate taps for the cold and hot water so you either freeze your face off or melt it into oblivion. If your particularly skillful and have asbestos hands you can sometimes blend them together really fast and make a nice temperature or if you’re lucky to be the first one to use the bathroom, the hot water hasn’t gotten that hot yet and you can just use that tap and do pretty well (I usually shoot for this option).

I suppose if I was feeling old fashioned I could stop up the drain and fill up the sink to blend the hot and cold together, but that just seems so wasteful and then you’d just be rinsing your face with soapy water, that never made any sense to me and my skin couldn’t tolerate it anyway. There are probably smarter solutions, but I’m lazy and usually just want to get to bed.

Well, I guess it’s quaint, and it is, of course, better than nothing.

I found a little time this afternoon to make an attempt at the final pattern shot for this month’s self-portrait challenge. I had to work quickly as I tried to take advantage of the few minutes after Alex wakes up from a nap when he’s still groggy enough to be positioned for a photo. Of course I wasted half of the time scrounging around for something to put him in that had vertical stripes.

This was one of the only shots I managed to get before he insisted upon leaving.

Even though the wee boy wasn’t into this photo session and made every attempt to scurry off to play with his measuring cup collection, I managed to get a couple interesting shots. Here’s my choice for runner up this week, practicing thigh drumming:

I have a lot to say about this, but I’m not going to.

I prefer not to interpret my own work, I think it’s too limiting and the impetus I had for making this particular image would probably detract from it if I were to explain my ideas. 

More pattern shots for this month at SPC.

I can only say that I am so run down and haggard that there was no way I could have been photographed today without shattering the lens. So my primary mission here was to obscure my face.

Continuing on with the confinement issue in last week’s spc post, I now decided to add more texture and some discordant, potentially irritating pattern to this one. The pattern isn’t quite as visually annoying as I would have liked unless it’s viewed really huge. At that point the tiny checkerboard backdrop starts to vibrate more the way I envisioned it. But you’d need a 30″ monitor to view it so no dice.

(larger version)

Visit SPC for more pattern shots.

I seem to be having technical difficulties with the blog so this post may suddenly show up numerous times or vanish. I uploaded this last night and by this morning it had disappeared so I have no idea what the problem is. Ach, it’s always something. 

I actually had a little free time this evening so I decided to use the camera for something other than snapshots tonight. Poor camera, she’s so sad, it’s been like using a racehorse for pony rides.

August’s SPC theme is self-portrait with pattern. I realize it’s technically still July, but I’m going ahead with the new theme because it’s easier and I don’t have to leave the house to do it. I don’t get to leave the house at all much any more, and if I do I’m never alone. Feels a bit like I’m under house arrest at times. It’s oddly confining and some may think it strange that I’d say that since I’m naturally somewhat of a recluse, but it’s different when it’s my own choice I guess.

(large version)

Oh, poor me. When I was a kid and acting like a pitiball, my mother would mock me mercilessly. She’d probably repeat some part of what I just complained about in a snively voice, followed by “boo hoo, I feel for you but I just can’t reach ya.” Man I hated it when she did that and I hate it even more that every time I whine a little bit that’s the first thing that pops into my head now. I didn’t actually even understand what she meant but I did know that I sure wasn’t going to get any sympathy.

Mom wasn’t big on sympathy in general, she was pretty tough at times and I always attributed it to her being German (because that’s what my father told me not because I was gifted at stereotyping). Well, I suppose it cut down on a lot of needless attention seeking and hey, no one can ever accuse my sister and I of being mollycoddled. Not that anyone has ever even come close to labeling me the victim of mollycoddling mind you, I just wanted to use the word.