Last year during the first lockdown, when I realized that most of my social and cultural activities were either unavailable or too cumbersome, I thought about what kind of photography I could do at home. Back then I still only owned the X100F so macro was out of the question. How about self portraits? A 35mm point of view was maybe not ideal but it was worth a try. Besides I needed some photos for Tinder anyway 🙂 I only kept one photo which I now use as a profile picture for this website. But I thought I’d share the rest of them with you.
I took these pictures with a small tabletop tripod on my desk. The white wallpaper provided an ideal backdrop. Instead of using the horrible Fujifilm remote control app on my phone I simply set an interval timer directly in camera to take a picture every 5 seconds. I could then simply move around, change my posture, look, facial expression and so on. It worked actually quite well and I kept these eight photos. I especially like the artsy looking collar on my shirt. I never wear that thing anywhere but it fits my photographic intention here well.
And yes I actually used them for my Tinder profile for maybe two weeks until I deleted the app again. All these dating apps where you just swipe people away are terribly superficial. Maybe two or three times a year I install Tinder just to delete it in frustration. One interesting thing I noticed is that I still see the same profiles I first encountered two years ago. Are those profiles even real or still active? Who knows? I do not trust the companies behind most dating apps. I mean they make money from you not meeting someone so they can show you more ads and upsell you their “premium” services.
Nevertheless I had fun taking some self portraits and I got a nice profile pic for my website out of it too.