Light Stalking

I want to do a self portrait, but do not know if i should do it in black and white, or color. I see that many of you have done one, at one time or another. Any sugestions on how and when I should do one? Night or day, sun shine, ? thanks in advance.

Shoot in colour, you can always convert the image into B/W in post production.

Bright sunshine is not always your friend, an overcast day will give you more even tones whereas bright sunlight will give you harsher shadows.
Night time would require flash unless you are extremely good at sitting still for long enough for a long exposure.

Get next to some nice natural light from a window. Preferably nice dispersed light from an overcast day. Then black and white. ;)

Take advantage of yourself as your own subject. Experiment in both natural lighting in the day time, and artificial light source’s in the night time, and obviously strobes, speedlites, etc (check out the strobist website for lot’s of technique information).

I personally love to play with flash, continuous lighting, and natural lighting. There’s so many endless possibilities. For me; playing with shadows, form and surrealism inspires me enough to continue with my love for photography, self portraits help in my inspiration; I can’t explain why exactly.. I guess they just do.

Night portraits suite my personality well, and I tend to produce weird and wonderful things ( in my opinion). This is a night portrait I did the other night, it’s nothing special I guess:

Hope I helped,

–
Ryan Bater