Ever since I tried my hand at sort-of-abstract fine art photography, I fancied dressing as a 1960s art photographer. I’ve had the idea of taking a self-portrait like this for ages, but I only just had the motivation to try it as this week’s Photo Challenge is to take a self portrait.
Taking self portraits is hard and the lighting here is bad. In the end I got fed up of running to and from the camera so I decided to call it a night. I hope to revisit the idea at some point when I have more enthusiasm and a willing volunteer to help. After all, that beret was £2 and I want to get my money’s worth!
I was trying to pull off the look of “1960s New York art photographer” (think along the lines of John Lennon) but I think it looks more like a stereotypical Frenchman – probably not helped by my Gallic shrug. I was trying to look like a bossy photographer shouting at a model! Perhaps my T-shirt should have been tighter, and tucked into high-waisted jeans. Oh well – the T shirt was only £3 from Primark and I’m sure I’ll get the wear out of it. The specs were crappy reading glasses from Poundland that I popped the lenses out of, and painted black.
The most expensive part of the costume by far is the gorgeous Mamiya C220 twin-lens reflex camera. It’s not a prop either – it’s a fully working and much-loved camera which I recently used to take pictures at a friend’s wedding 🙂
Jonathan Gazeley 
