2008

iMac photobooth self portrait

liza cowan, self portrait using iMac Photobooth, January 2007

smiling self portrait

I've taken a lot of smiling self portraits. This is one of them. Smiling is nice. People respond well. But soon after I did this one I began to be curious what it would be like not to smile.

Liza Cowan, self portrait, January 2007

self portait not smiling

. For light I used my halogen desk lamp with a bit of wax paper for a diffuser. It was getting dark out, so the background went black when I lit my face.

liza cowan, self portrait, January 2007

Profile comic style

e iMac Photobooth, photoshopped. I ran it through one of the artistic filters but did a lot of hand work on the face and color toning. Using natural daylight, I held a black cloth behind me to create the silhouette. The circular image is a button from my coat. I'm also wearing my green silk scarf, as usual.

Liza Cowan, self portrait with green scarf, January 2007

Dracula with Green Scarf

Using my green scarf for a backdrop. A friend said this looks like dracula. Indeed.

liza cowan, january 2007, self portrait

Through two lenses

I held my glasses very close to the lens of the iMac Photobooth lens until they framed my face.

Liza Cowan, self portrait with hand, January 2007

self portrait with hand

I'm holding the black felt over my head, making kind of a tent over the computer. I'm enjoying the limitations of this photobooth camera. Tiny file size, though.

Self portrait in black.

Same sweater, different day. I guess it proves that I wear the same black zip sweater all the time in the winter.

self portrait with swan painting, Liza Cowan 2007

I'm holding one of my swan paintings behind me. I've run all these images through several photoshop filters as well as doing quite a bit of hand manipulating I don't even know what I've done to make my images look the way they do.

liza cowan self portrait in grey

Study in grey

colorful day liza cowan self portrait

colorful day

Photobooth self portraits

I took this series of self portraits using the Photobooth device on my iMac. Since I spend a lot of time at my computer, this camera is very convenient for me. I'm there, the camera's there - and the best thing is that I can export to iPhoto then Photoshop and my design program without ever having to change equipment. This is a god send for an artist who spends probably too much time at a desk, but I'm at the gallery seven or eight hours a day, five days a week. Usually I'm busy with gallery work, but I do manage to find time for little bursts of photography and post production.