I am not unfamiliar with the concept of a self-portrait. I’m guilty of the selfie — on my cellphone, my film camera, my DSLR — but for this photo column assignment, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to try to capture my essence, as well as myself, in the time and space I am occupying.
I’m currently a month into my senior year of college, and I’m living at home. I’ve learned that I spend most of my time doing three things: studying for my insanely hard classes, sleeping off the social interactions I squeeze into my day and photographing whatever and whenever I can. Sometimes the three nicely and neatly fit together in my schedule like a perfect game of Tetris. Other times, they collide like a nasty car crash, causing me to (lose) sleep. This photo shows that sort of collision — late-night studying, toying around with my cameras and, ultimately, sleeping. This photo depicts what stage of life I’m in.
I created this snoozetastic photograph by staging my laptop, notebook and two film cameras on my bed. I put my headphones in my ear and my glasses in my hand. I plugged in the softest, most peaceful lighting my room has to offer, and I set my DSLR up at waist height on my tripod, approximately eight feet from my bed. I set my ISO to 800, my aperture to f/29 and my shutter speed to 10 seconds. I purposefully overexposed the photo a tiny bit to capture the blue glow from my laptop screen on my knees curled up under my comforter. I then set the 10-second timer, ran to my bed and promptly got comfortable while hoping my cat wouldn’t jump on my bed and ruin the photo. Thankfully she didn’t, and this photo was created.
Contact the photographer at Alacasse@asu.edu. Contact the columnist at courtney.pedroza@asu.edu
