Throwback Thursday: Self-portraits

Hi! So I don't often participate in throwback Thursday on my various social media accounts, but as I was writing my last post I had the idea of doing a post with some of my old self-portraits. In my last post I briefly explained how I used to wait until no one was home and get dressed up and have little photo shoots with myself. Similar to what I still do from time to time, but with lesser equipment, less knowledge, and a different editing style.

Throughout high school I spent an absurd amount of time editing selfies and photos of my friends and I in Picnick, until Picnick was no more. Soon after I started college in 2010, I started to get more serious about photography, and I upgraded my basic, pocket point-and-shoot, to a more advanced point-and-shoot, my Nikon Coolpix L120. I also started using Corel Paintshop Pro for most of my editing at this time. During this time, and especially during my semester off inbetween transferring schools, I started with my solo photo shoots, and eventually started photographing my friends, nature, my family, and basically anything I could. During my semester off, I spent a lot of time just wandering around my hometown by myself - walking through the woods, hanging out by the river and on the bridge - taking photos of everything, teaching myself the basics and picking up my own style.

After my semester off followed by a summer with my L120, I was ready to get back to school and I knew what I wanted to do. In fall 2012 I started at IUP as a communications media major, focusing on photography. After I began my major classes, probably during my second semester at IUP, my photography saw significant improvement. So today I'm just going to share photos that I took prior to any of my photography education and training.

It was definitely interesting going back through these. In addition to seeing the evolution of my photography and editing style, you also get to see the evolution of my hair styles. Okay, here we go.

First, from May 2011:

June 2011:

RIP belly ring :'(

August 2011:

October 2011:

February 2012:

March 2012:

April 2012:

May 2012:

June 2012:

July 2012:

August 2012:

November 2012:

February 2013:

Okay, so that was a lot of photos, yeah? That wasn't all of them. My Facebook is chalk full of 'em. You can just scroll down through my profile pictures on Facebook to see my hair in even more different cuts and colors, and to see some of my silly old Picnick edits from my high school days.

But it's funny how much things change. My style has changed so much - in regards to my hair and clothes, yes, but even more so in my editing. A lot of these images are very grainy and contrasty, with crazy colors and filters. Nowadays I like to keep my colors more natural looking and my photos more bright. And I never mess with filters and presets anymore. It helps that I know so much more about lighting, not to mention editing, than when I was getting started.

It was cool to see the progression of my photography and of myself while searching for these photos. I feel like I've generally become more refined in regards to most things, but I guess completing college can do that for you! And these photos have served a purpose - some of them helped get me hired as a model at ModCloth, which further sparked my love of modeling and fashion photography, ultimately helping to give me direction with where I would like to take my photography. So cheers to this wacky bunch of old self-potraits!

Happy TBT. Thanks for taking the time to read!

#selfportrait #throwbackthursday #tbt #selfiegamestrong