I noticed the highlight on the head, this is from the room lighting and wasn't supposed to be in the image which is a shame.
Lighting was an 80x80 softbox camera right angled down at ceiling height. I wanted a big falloff and I really like the shadows on the background as I think it adds to the image but I could have moved off the wall to remove the shadows as previously suggested but wanted something on the background rather than it being completely uniform.
I may try the box lower to try and remove the shadows under the eyes. I find it quite annoying taking selfies and if I were taking the images of someone else I'd have probably have taken more and experimented with more lighting setups.
That's helpful then - I've found it's all about analysing what you've done and what effect it has... tracing it back and making changes one at a time to see what happens. It can be tempting to change lots of things all at once (or - worse - add more lights) but that makes it very hard to work out what change had what effect!
In terms of the height of the softbox, by all means lower it down - but really to see the effect, rather than that being a "better" location. Generally, we all start off shooting with light sources too far away and too low down, so I'd worry less about having it too high and get it closer (ok, if it's pointing down onto your head from above then it's probably too high and too close!)... if you're struggling to get the image without the softbox being in frame it's probably almost in the right place
How are you lighting your softbox - flash, mains head or continuous lighting? One of these options is likely to be fine, one is potentially ideal and one is potentially a cause of problems. (And they're in that order, but since you have your kit, it's too late to worry about that...) I also ask because I'd expect a flash to more or less drown out your indoor room lighting, whereas it seems to have a fairly significant effect - making me wonder if your flash is set quite low?
I find selfies quite helpful in some ways - I'm far less attractive than my kids and my skin is definitely harder to light successfully, so it's a good challenge. Selfies also force you to s l o w r i g h t d o w n... because it's a pain to shoot each shot. So I find I tend to think more about the setup - is my aperture the same (I have a habit of knocking it), have I moved focus or the position of the tripod, did I make that change to the lighting, etc., all before pressing the timer.
Just to reiterate - I really like the background lighting you've achieved so if you can keep that, it certainly works for me.
As a final point, is it worth doing all of this when we can correct things in post? Well, sometimes we need to resort to photoshop - but it's far better to try to get things right in camera. You'll learn more about lighting (and photography in general) and once you get the hang of it, it's far quicker to get it right in camera once for 20 different shots with similar lighting than have to replicate the same "correction" in photoshop 20 times
Do you mind me asking what is being implied? I agree with the hot spot on the forehead, that can easily be fixed in PP. Overall nice image mate, I'll be watching out for more as I to am relatively new and it'll be good to read the feedback.
I'd rather not derail Steven's thread but let's just say I personally find them distracting at best and... well, a bit unnecessary unless you are genuinely a professional photographer looking to protect your images. But then I might just be odd.
Selfie-1 by Steven Graham, on Flickr
Selfie-1-2
