Game futileby
SondaComment by Sonda: Ok.. Explanation time :)
Yes, this is my left and right side, both me :)
I took it with my new flash which can do the strobe technique, pretty cool.
I set the strobe to fire once every second, and the camera to 10 s exposure (I got these values by trial and error, plus I wanted a decent f-stop in this setup)
Then I hung a black sheet on a wall and set up the chess table.
I put on this red sweater which I can unzip in a second and had the blue tanktop under.
Now you need an assistant that can count to 10 and move a lenscap fast over the lens. Push the trigger, while the assistant holds the cap over the lens.
Jump into position, (the camera was about 3ft away from the chessboard), have your assistant remove lenscap for one flash and recover, throw off sweater, slide the chess table out of the frame and jump to opposite side, have your assistant remove cap for last flash.
It might sound hard, but it was not that hard, try to do this in 10sec, there is plenty of time, but it is also easy to miss... not much time left to mess up either :)
Ok.. so what is the meaning of this you might ask yourself...
I have not put this much thought behind a shot before.. And I don't think that many people got it, that is not your fault as a viewer.. It just proves that I have alot to learn I think :)
First of all.. What did I think here?
I see myself, me as I am now on the right side playing the futile game of life against death. The image is indicating that the game is futile because the chess table is turned the wrong way.
Being now in my mid life I think (32), the pieces that once used to be all white and shiny are turning black.. not there yet :) but black will not just win, but fade the entire table into black.
So the reason why I made myself so white on the left side (ie death) is because I think that the image of death is quite featureless and pale, hermaphrodite sort of, and still I think that the image of death each one of us have is quite personal, which means that it differs alot from culture to culture. Being a personal view, filtered by my mind and eyes then what I see will be colored by me.. so the symbolism here is that Death is a part of me, but still not me.
My left pinky in my left eye is My being left eyed and left handed, which eye I sight with is important when I take photos.. The symbolism with being left handed is the left side- showing my artistic side etc.. And taking this my self portrait I thought that was appropriate :)
Post processing.. nothing unusual.. sharpen-neatimage, levels.. But I dodged "death" to make myself more featureless.
Glad some of you liked :) Thank you
Message edited by author 2005-02-21 02:48:02. 
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