Self-Portrait of the Photographer {Portrait Photography, San Jose, CA}

Taking pictures is my passion. It is a passion of every photographer out there, at least this is what I believe in.

We spent hours on end shooting, editing, thinking about locations or location hunting, visualizing sessions with clients, browsing the Internet and organizing our Pinterst boards. Everything for one purpose – to become a better photographer and to serve our clients better. Many of us have mastered and memorized all the techniques of encouraging our models to feel comfortable in front of the camera. We know a lot about posing, how to make people look good, how to use the light and how to use every bit of space as a good spot for a photograph.

We take tremendous amounts of pictures weekly… Don’t we.

But how many pictures of ourselves, with kids, with spouses or without them, do we have?
How many times when somebody said, “hey you’ve been shooting all the time, let me take some pictures of you”, you just packed your stuff and run away or hide? I remember those days too good.

We have all the fancy equipment to capture beautiful moments of people and for people but so few of us use the same equipment and talent for themselves.

In addition there isn’t a better way to practice the knowledge about photography than to practice on ourselves. It’s free and nobody else needs to see it.

At the same time you might be really surprised how many great moments you will capture, especially if there are kids involved!
I cherish all my self-portraits I’ve taken so far, no matter how blurry and not perfect they are.

So, if you’re a photographer, and if you read this, I challenge you to go out there and turn your camera on yourself.
Once for a while, instead of spending an hour in front of the computer looking for inspiration, just go out and face the camera yourself. You might be surprised how many new things you’ll learn, how many new ideas you will get.

I can promise you that!

Here my two tutorials talking about of how to start taking self-portraits:

Now go out there and shoot yourself! Good luck and don’t forget to have fun!