Puddle No. 5: Self-Portrait No. 3

Without making too many excuses or apologies, I will say that this one gives the general idea of what I was going for but that I would need to make quite a few changes if I were really to get it just right. In the end, this makes me think of a location scouting trip—getting down the outline of ideas with the intention of thinking it through, planning it out, and coming back later to shoot for real (except I’m not going to do any of that).

The method: found a puddle in the parking lot of the Fremont State Lakes, set the camera on the hood of the car, started the timer, ran around to the other side of the puddle, did a silly pose (the non-pose pose in this case), checked to make sure I was even in the frame. Repeated several times until the camera battery died (I didn’t have an extra). The kids had fallen asleep in the car, and my mom was witness to me making a fool of myself trying to get the shot. I probably would have felt too self-conscious to even try had it been anyone else.