Recently someone asked me if I was an astronaut because of my profile picture.. I realised.. yes our profile pictures are small and hard to see so it could look like that.. which prompted me to think it would be a good idea to talk about how I made my profile picture, and since @felobtc recently started the steemitnamechallenge I figured this would be a nice follow on post.
I’m not really one for selfies or being in front of the camera in general. So doing a profile picture is always a pain for me and I’d rather not do it.. however, on the flip side, I am a fan of Tron, I love their visual effects and the costumes etc and decided I wanted a Tron inspired profile pic.
You know.. something cool like how Jeff Bridges looks in the movie here:
Source: Screenshot from Disney’s Tron Legacy Movie.
So to achieve this look I need to do a little research.. and that research led me to EL Tape. As in.. ElectroLuminescent Tape. Amazingly cool stuff.. You can get it in wire, strips, panels .. panels you can cut into particular shapes. At one point I was considering buying massive strips to put on my walls to do away with traditional light bulbs.. that would have been SO cool.
Anyway, I used this stuff:
https://elwirecraft.co.uk/product/el-tape-2cm-x-40cm-neon-glow-strip-2/
Not this exact product, I got mine form amazon but I can’t find it on there anymore. I went with the white light option (obviously).
Next get yourself a hoodie, some double sided sticky tape and stick the EL Tape into the hood of the hoodie. If you want it to be more permanent it might be an idea to sew it in or something, the sticky tape doesn’t last long at all.
 |  |
|---|---|
| El Tape installed in the Hoodie | How it looks switched on with the lights out |
Now comes the actual photography part. This is the trickiest part of the process. Taking a self portrait with a DSLR is hard. Especially if you do not have a flip screen on the camera or if you need to use manual focus. It requires a lot of trial and error, and error and error and error, some tearing out of hair and the occasional temper tantrum.
Doing this project I gained a new respect for people who do self portraits a lot and even more for those that do it well. If you want an example of someone who is totally crushing it with self portraits on steemit go check out @eveuncovered. I’m sure you already know of her, if not.. then what steemit rock have you been hiding under?
Back to the actual process:
To accomplish this I setup my DSLR camera on a tripod and tethered my camera to a laptop so I could use the laptop screen for a live screen view of what the camera could see. This made it easier for me to dial in the settings. I would stand in front of the lens and take some test shots as well as look into the laptop screen to make sure I was correctly framed and at the right distance from the lens in order to be in focus. I then marked the floor with masking tape where my feet should be in order to easily get back into position.
A remote shutter comes in handy here. I switched off the lights in the room so it was completely dark (I did this shoot in the evening so no outside light affected the shot. I wanted all light to come from the light strip inside my hoodie.
Then I started shooting.. looking straight into the lens, looking to the side, slightly up, slightly down .. trying to get the right angle.
As you can see, it took quite a few attempts … just to get ONE shot right. ….aaaand that is why I have so much awe and respect for people like @eveuncovered who do this kind of photography on a regular basis. It is NOT easy.
Needless to say after about 30 attempts I was done. As in I’d had enough, I was fed up. I figured that out of all these shots surely there MUST be one that worked out. Well this is what I ended up with:
I am not a member of the blue man group so clearly the color balance in this image is way off. A big part of that has to do with the EL Tape I used. Yes, it is white, but it is a very cool white which quickly becomes blue in camera and I used the basic ‘I’m shooting indoors' white balance setting on my camera.
So from there I did two things. The picture is pretty damn good but I wanted a more natural color to the image and I wanted a black and white version. So I pulled the image into lightroom, adjusted the brightness ever so slightly and converted the image to black and white producing this:
Then I took a virtual copy of the image and edited it in color. All this required was to move the color balance slider to the right making the image warmer and warmer until all the blue was out of my face. Leaving me with the final product here:
I know I have been a little vague on the details here in this post on my method but it is a case of there being not one single right way to do this. I can only suggest you experiment for yourselves, but I will say the absolute minimum you need for this is:
- a decent camera
- a tripod
- a timed or remote trigger release
That’s it. That’s how I made my profile picture for steemit. It was super fun and one day I would like to modify a leather jacket (like flynn’s in the movie) with EL strips. I have the jacket, but I need to loose some weight so I don’t look like a idiot when i wear the jacket. I have developed a bit of slush around the old mid section in the last few years!
Thanks for Looking.
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photography that interests me.@fiftysixnorth
Thanks @streetfotografi :)
Very inventive, your picture kicks ass bud 👍😎 Thanks for the insight!
Thanks man :) I was super pleased with how well it came out in the end :)
Thanks @pixresteemer :)
Nicely done!
Thanks okkiedot :)
AND A SWEET PICTURE IT IS , and i love tron and the tape is super cool for all kinds of ideas.
be well
@fiftysixnorth
Thanks man :) yeah the tape has many possibilities, right now it's taped to the underside of a shelf in my closet to light up my shirts when I'm looking for something. Good stuff that tape :)
Have a great day! :)
YOU! 🤗🤗 Why did you not come and tell me you did a huge shoutout for me in your post, you know there is no notification when you mention someone!
I was laughing at your near temper tantrums, because I know exactly how it feels. What I struggle the most is the focus, you took one shot of your face, try taking a whole body shot and move around ;) Don't do it for real, I don't want you to loose your mind.
That tape is pretty cool, I'm getting some weird and sexey ideas to use it... 😏 And like I already told you before, I really like your portraits, its very unique!
I forgot about that! I told you I am sometimes really bad at the who communicating thing :) You should look into Ginabot, its super handy for notifications on mentions and stuff :)
I'd definitely loose y mind if I tried full body shots, the focus was the part I struggled with the most as well. I definitely recommend playing around with the tape, I would love to see what you come up with for that! A few people have done some cool stuff with it on flickr.
So they keep saying to me, I guess I have to because I miss stuff all the time..
Oh definitely.. its so useful. You can set it up to do so much. It's made my life a lot easier on here :)
Your eyes are piercing!
Nonetheless, I dont know how I've landed here but I enjoyed reading this post
Xo
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the post .. and that you found it randomly :) I've never had someone tell me my eyes are piercing, thank you! You flatter me! :)
Haha.
Well, that wasn't my intention but I'm pleased with the outcome.
If I'm anything , it would be honest. I tend to speak my mind.
Greetings from the other side,
Nairobi,Kenya. :)
10.24am
Honesty is always best :) thank you! Greetings right back at you from Scotland :D
They say
Wow. ..Scotland, it gets more interesting! So are you rocking your kilt today?😅
Dont mind me, just curious😂
hahaha! I'm not Scottish but Dutch. I just live in Scotland :) so I wouldn't wear a kilt myself. Generally though here people only wear kilts for special/formal occasions. Although I do have a friend that wears his everyday! :)
That friend though. Very loyal/patriotic.
That's unfortunat :( , my next step was to request for kilts challenge, who knows where it would have led(probably would have broke the internet) :P
Dutch...hmmmh..what's popping there? I recently made friends with a dutch nomads couple... I guess ya'll don't like your country that much.. or are you guys generally travellers?
curious much. Sorry not sorry :)
That's interesting! Never thought about something like that. Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks, my pleasure :)
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man, that's fire! love that shot.
Thanks man :D
Great shot, and as a photographer myself, I really enjoyed your description of how you accomplished it, color balance and all. ;-)
When I first saw your profile photo, it reminded me of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, which is interesting as well, at least to me.
But I LOVED Tron, especially the original film, which was truly groundbreaking when it came out. Thanks for your post.
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) I've only seen a few episodes of breaking bad.. its on my list of series to watch though, I've heard so many great things about it.
Tron is the best, I thought the original was amazing when it first came out and the sequel was just plain gorgeous.. :)
Yes, sorry to say I've not seen the sequel yet to "Tron," though I really wanted to see it in the theatre. C'est la vie.
But we'll see it soon, of that I have no doubt. Ideally I'd like to rent them together, and watch the first one followed by the sequel. My love for the original "Tron" was solidified by the fact that Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and David Warner were all already among my favorite actors.
"Breaking Bad" is one of the finest series I've seen televised, with excellence in everything from storyline to scripting, editing, production values, casting, and of course, acting. Phenomenal, from beginning to end. Aaron Paul, who played Jesse Pinkman, quickly became our favorite character, and we've liked him in the other roles we've seen him in so far.
It is solidly in my top 5 favorite series of all time, along with "Hannibal," "Pushing Daisies" (which was created and largely written by Brian Fuller, who also created and wrote most of Hannibal), the original 1970s "I, Claudius," and "Six Feet Under," which remains solidly in first place. ;-)
Everyone seems to say that of breaking bad which makes me want to set aside a week to just binge on it! :)
You won't be sorry. Time well spent.
Fair warning, though, you maybe exhausted afterward. It's quite an emotional journey.