This week I am half-way through my fiftytwo self portrait project. I have been presenting a new picture of me every week both as a diverting game to play with some of my photographer-friends and also as a discipline to help me learn more about the art of digital photography.

A few weeks ago one of my friends, Saralonde, published a picture that caught my attention – a black and white, high key (deliberately blown highlights and strong contrast) view of half her face. At the time I decided that I wanted to emulate it and week 26 of fiftytwo seemed like an ideal opportunity.

Working with The Gimp, I created my black and white image by decomposing it to separate monochrome layers representing the red, green and blue channels. I adjusted the blending modes and opacity of each to get the balance I was after and then, instead of recomposing the channels, flattened them into a single monochrome picture.

If you are interested, you can also see the picture I worked from; it is just as well I intended to chop it in half to begin with as I somehow ended up with a bit of fluff on the other side of my chin!

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