Week 1 BOC: Self Portrait

What do you think of when you think of a single image that defines yourself, well for me it is my 68 mustang. This car is not in pristine condition nor is it currently running. It is you could say a work in progress; I wanted to use this symbolism for my assignment. I did not want to do the traditional self portrait of myself and figured this was the perfect way to describe myself in a single photograph. I like this car have been a little bruised and worn over the years, yet with a little elbow grease the car and myself can and will be right as rain again one day. It also represents how you can take an old car and turn it into something new again, like myself having gone back to school to get a degree in a totally different field than I was working making myself new and improved again.
The lighting I used for this shot was a simple two light set up with a long exposure. I chose to shoot at night to be able to achieve the look I wanted. In the non edited photo this image does not look like much and I do not believe in a lot of photo manipulation with my photographs. The effect comes from adding a filter in post to lighten the shadow areas and to enhance brighter areas. I am a fan of the old aged look in photographs as well as black and white photography, so in this the final image I wanted to bring out the details light in a black and white photograph while making it look somewhat aged.