10 Great Places to Take Self-Portraits

One super fun way to get inspired to take self-portraits is by seeking out great locations to take our photos.  It might be around your home or out ‘n about in the world.  I wanted to share 10 of my favourite places to take self-portraits with you!

So lets get started!

 

bathroom

A bathroom is the perfect place to take a self-portrait. It is a place where it is okay to take a few minutes to yourself, so why not take a moment for a few photos.  As a bonus, they often are a room in a home that has great light and a mirror so a perfect place to start exploring taking self-portraits or to take a few photos any time of the day.
You may even find yourself inspired by bathrooms when you are out and about at restaurants or cafe’s!

mural

A mural or brightly painted wall in your neighbourhood adds a stunning background to a self-portrait.  Using a wall as a background also allows our camera to have something to focus on as we are taking the photo.  Plus they tell a great story.

park

A nearby park or green space may quickly become your favourite place for a self-portrait.  The bigger the park, the more you can explore and find a spot that feels right for you.  If there is a park or green space near where you live, it can be really powerful to visit it throughout the year and take photos, noting the changes in season.

These spaces can be anything from a small wildly growing trail between houses, a public park, a community garden, or even a cemetery.  The above photo was taken way up in the beautiful hills above the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.  One of my favourite places to shoot locally is the stunning Vandusen Gardens.  Most days though, the ravine a block from my home or the park nearby were fabulous places to both go for a stroll as well as to engage in some self-portrait adventuring.

backyard

A backyard is often one of the most useful places to take a selfie!  Often more private and enclosed, you can get dressed up or bring out a few props for your photos without carrying them too far.  Its easy to get inspired and head back inside for a change of clothes or to get more things to as props in your photos.

sidewalk

A sidewalk or path can provide an engaging visual in a photo.  The way each side draws the viewer into the center of the image can make for a striking image.  It also invites the viewer into the story of the image. Where does the path lead? Where is she going?

As well, it is a really simple place to take a photo.  In a moment when I see light rays falling on the sidewalk, I head outside with my camera and take a photo of myself standing in the light before the moment passes and the light is gone.  If I only have a few moments for a photo walk I will often just go around the block and find a spot on the sidewalk that has a good background.  Your self-portraits don’t need to be a grand affair…they can also just be taking a few moments to yourself as you walk around the block and documenting that.

tree

One of the challenges the students in my classes often come across and ask about it “How do I set up a self-portrait and get it to focus without standing in front of it?” Having something to stand beside in your self-portrait allows your camera to have a subject at the same distance to focus on while you are getting from pressing the button to in the shot.  Plus they can visually add some texture and tone to your photo or give you something to hide behind or hug!

bytheshore

By the waters edge or shore is a great place to take a photo.  The contrast of the shore and the water, the lines and the colours that appear during sunset make it one of my favourite places to shoot a self-portrait!

If you are watching a sunset by the water some day, why not try setting up your camera and shooting a photo of your silhouette against the sky.

somewhereofmeaning

One of the best places to shoot a self-portrait is somewhere that holds meaning to you.  It could be your home, a place you visit, a place that has history for you, or a place you just discovered but feel at home.  Allowing your setting to help you tell a story in your photos makes for a very powerful photo!

railwaytracks

Abandoned Railway Tracks are one of my favourite spots to take self-portraits.  The simple lines of the tracks are so visually engaging and invite a strong story into the photo.  Much like a path or sidewalk, it engages the viewer in a way that pulls them right into the photo.  I love simply putting my camera on the rail and taking a photo from that perspective.

Please do make sure they are tracks that no longer run trains though!

rightnow

What is a better setting to share in a photo than the place you are, right here, right now.  A way to just pause and check in with yourself and take a photo of this day.

Do you have a favourite spot to take self-portraits? I’d love to hear about it…and please feel free to share links to your blog or flickr and share a photo of your favourite place to take a self-portrait!  Or add the hashtag #beyourownbeloved on Instagram or Twitter to share your favourite places with us!

Or if you’d like even more self-portrait inspiration, come join me for the upcoming session of the Be Your Own Beloved class!

Nextbyobeloved

Owen & Luke’s Epic Wedding

shadowws

Soon after the Carnival of Love I headed eastward to Winnipeg to witness and photograph the wedding of two dear friends.  This wedding was truly epic.  A collection of Vancouverite friends also made the trek to Manitoba, all of us fairly smitten with this beautiful city and the kind community our friends had found when they moved there.

I had actually lived with one of these fellows when they started dating and had shot this photo of them early in their relationship so it was extra beautiful to be able to celebrate their connection and to photograph this day for them.  From their ceremony in the park to a backyard barbeque to a dance party in an art gallery, and the rad photobooth we set up for the night, it was one beautiful day.  It was a combination of the kind people, amazing music and the collective happiness for the couple that made the day truly epic.

Here are a few shots from the couple portrait sessions I did with these two lovely fellows.

Big love and congrats to you two!

owen-luke3wsowen-lukews_MG_1149wsowen-luke2ws

The Carnival of Love

_MG_9644ws

Michelle the Mermaid and Billy the Ringmaster (aka trout of Kreddible Trout Photography) were married on a cliff overlooking the ocean on Gabriola Island.  Their wedding, known as the Carnival of Love was truly incredible….they were married atop of two red and white painted barrels surrounded by their friends and family.  A fortune teller, a bearded lady (who was also the stiltwalker), face painting, hoola hoops, bean bag toss and every candy you could imagine were just a few of the characters and details put together by this lovely couple.

I felt so thankful to be a part of it. Here’s a few glimpses into the Carnival and the lovely couple on their big day.

theweddingcarnivaldiptych2 carnival_MG_9505wscarnivaldiptychforest

My Guitar and I

My guitar and I are working things out.  Truth be told, I’m not a fancy guitar player at all.  I don’t know the names of the chords, or any musical theory what so ever, but the guitar is more so a means of me connecting my creative loves of singing and songwriting.

Its true.  They came first. Music and singing have been a lifelong creative love.  Though it is not as though I discovered that love music at any specific point, it was just always there.  Songwriting, on the other  hand, came about when I first picked up a guitar at age 16 and wrote a song for a friend that was moving away, and it never really stopped.

When I picked up my guitar today to finally play it, i got chills down my spine and got a lil’ teary as I started to sing.  Its a different creative experience than photography.  Its as though music is a past lover and photography is my life partner.  Making music is the one that is so intense and powerful and got into the depths of who I am, but photogrpahy…its the one I know I’ll love for the rest of my life.

Songwriting is such a different creative process.  The way I experience it is similar to the way I hear writers explain their process.  Its as though we are vessels for art to manifest.  Songs have come to me whole, others take years to be finished.  Once I woke up from a dream and had a song about that dream come out in completion moments later.  Sometimes they are therapy, other times they feel like they are about something that hasn’t happened to me yet.

So, the return of my guitar from its case on the storage shelf back to a prime place of honor in my house came about this week when I made a decision I’ve been working up to for a very long time.

I’m going to squam. 

Now, for those of you who are visiting me here and are wondering what the heck squam is, go here…

I’ve wanted to go to squam, well, ever since I heard about it.  Though at that point I was feeling far more introverted and less confident than I am these days and the prospect of going to a retreat with some of the people who inspire me the most these days…was just all too much for me at the time.  So when this years registration came about, I proceeded to convince myself not to go.  Me, being on the west coast of one country and it being on the east coast of another was a great excuse for me not to go for a while.  Then there’s the money.  Yet another excuse.  What I realized recently was that what overpowered these reasons was actually that I was plain old scared to go and when I realized that, well, that meant that I really, truly, had to be there.

That realization got kicked into high gear last week when I saw that there was only one spot left in the Jonatha Brooke’s songwriting class.  It was in that moment that it felt like my love of songwriting had enough of my scaredy cat ways and demanded “I WANT TO GO TO SQUAAAM”.  Before I knew it, there I was signing up and paying. 

The other class I’d been wanting to go to all along was Andrea Jenkin’s TTV workshop.  I so admire her work and am very excited to take her class!  I was extra giddy a few days later when the Marisa Haedike and Christine Mason Miller class got announced and fit divinely into my schedule for the weekend.   

A mere month after all of that goodness is to occur I’m heading to another art retreat, this one being the Be Present Retreat on the Oregon coast (swoon).  I’m so very excited to take classes with the lovely lovely Andrea Scher, Kelly Rae Roberts and Liz Lamoureux.

I have to take a moment writing that to sigh and revel in how exciting a fall its going to be getting to take all these workshops.  If you happen to be going to either retreat please let me know!

Ever since I decided go I’ve felt so good about that decision.  The amount of energy that I had been putting into thinking about squam, fearing going, stressing about it, pondering how i’ll need to take a week off the internet in September to avoid the squam, squam, squamness. So thankful that a part of me finally got sick enough of the squam-drama in my head and just settled the score.

Its going to be soo good to have all my creative loves explored at these retreats, along with pushing me creatively to do more painting.

I can barely wait for fall, though by no means do i want to rush this summer by!

And in response to the lovely megg’s comment about sharing some music… i’m workin’ on it!