Sep 1

Just My Luck

So, I’m trying to take a sufficiently mysterious and creepy picture of myself to use in my creepy art project–as those of you who read my last post know–and, as you also know, we’ve been talking about the necessity of coming to terms with what you look like and blah blah blah.

Well, anyway, my point is that my whole damn goal was to take a picture of myself that looked creepy, so I… well, you’ll see.  I overdid it with the eyeliner and the red lipstick and… I think I accidentally succeeded in taking the cutest picture of me ever.  What the hell?

It just makes me laugh so hard that the one time I want to take a picture of me that gives me the heebie jeebies, I get a photo that shows me in a way I could stand to look.

cutecreepy.jpg

33 thoughts on “Just My Luck”

  1. That is a beautiful picture of you.

    Absolutely beautiful.

    And I have my theories on the whole “why is my creepy picture the cute one”, but they involve a lot of mystical fraggle.

  10. I have no trouble whatsoever taking creepy pictures of myself.. In fact, I’m having trouble not doing that..

    My friend jeff’s comment after seeing this picture was “i feel like you just finished chaining me to a water heater in your basement”

  13. It is an excellent photo and you probably can’t make it creepy even if you tried. But you could give it a sepia tone or an old movie effect. That would work well for a decoupage masterpiece.

  14. @ Chris Wage
    Oh man, your friend sure got that right. But it could also be the jacket photo from the back of the bestseller you wrote entirely by hand from your jail cell. And I mean that in the happy-good for you!-way.

  15. The conversation I just had:

    Mags: Oooh, look at Aunt B! [points to picture]

    Breviloquence: [raises eyebrows] She clearly doesn’t know how to give anyone the creeps.

    Mags: Well she’s giving me shivers.

    Breviloquence: That’s not the same thing, honey…

    Mags: Awwww.

  17. Presenting yourself as your authentic self is a good way to like how you look. Lipstick and eyeliner didn’t make you beautiful, but if the cosmetics helped you to recognize the self we see, then that’s a good thing. That color lipstick, incidentally, is great on you.

  19. I think you look absolutely smashing all the time, but I must admit, there is an ethereal beauty about this picture.
    And you lips look absolutely hot.

    Wowza!

  26. Emily, I’m not sure I want to risk it. Normally when people take pictures of me, this is how it turns out. Which is scary in its own right, but not the look I’m going for for this project, I don’t think.

    I need to get a good picture of how it all turned out and upload it for y’all. It didn’t end up being as creepy as I wanted. Apparantly, Michael’s is not well-stocked with things that induce heebie-jeebies, not even this close to Halloween. Cutesy Halloween stuff? Yea, I could have made out like a bandit, but no luck with the creepy.

  27. Well that, among other things, is what Photoshop is for. I could make you look creepy. I’d prefer that there were more of you in the picture (at the very least, I’d need a high-resolution original)… and some parameters on what you wanted… but still.

    As for things to make a creepy collage, it again depends on what you want. Michaels is useful, sure, but…. mmm, what direction were you going in? Scrapbooking sites (and books) tend to have a lot of different ideas… some of which could be made sufficiently creepy with a little work.

    In my head, I envisioned you at the center (standing upright, possibly with arms outstretched)… possibly about 8 x 10, or so. (I’m proportioning this on a smallish posterboard, but you can do it any ol’ way you like). Pictures of things that are important to you (Mrs. Wigglebottom, pictures of any ancecstors you care to add, etc.), other pictures of you, definitely… like this closeup, macro closeups of your eyes, and a collage of thing you deem creepy (skulls, ghost pictures, whatever. I’m not sure what counts as creepy for you) make up the base/background. It doesn’t have to cover the entire area… it actually shouldn’t.

    Bits of black lace, fabrics you like with cool textures, neat textured paper, articles or blog posts or whatever if that floats your boat, and other similar things round out any blank spaces. Accenting all of that (if you get the balance right, it’s ‘visually interesting’ instead of ‘overwhelming’ or ‘crowded’… but I tend to wind up vacillating from ‘so simple you wonder if it’s really finished’ to ‘overwhelming, but still kind of neat’), you can add dried leaves (both big neat looking ones from outside, and aromatic herbs… say anything left over from your earlier sun garden?)… particularly anything with significance for you, fake spiderweb (if you can find good-quality stuff. If not, you’re welcome to use real spiderweb, but a) ew, and b) I don’t know how to really tell you how to do that.. or you can make webby bits by using a hot glue gun, if you want relatively low-complexity designs), cool beads, dark wax (with or without seals. They’re usually pretty cheap.), and any small holy (or creepy, or whatever) signs you want. You can use twine or string to make 3d lines around your page, or to macrame things, or to make your own spiderweb if you wabt something more representational.

    If you don’t want to come up with a lot of sufficiently creepy/otherworldly pictures on your own, the internet is a good place to start (though yeah, there’s always the intellectual property thing… but you weren’t planning on selling it, were you?). Scrapbooking stores also carry a lot of stuff like this, which definitely helps round things out. Sheet music is another good standby for filling space and adding (forgive the pun) tone. Same with pictures of old buildings, lyrics to songs you like, disconnected letters, your own handwriting…

    Looking at other people’s collages can be useful for layout and ideas; this person has a lot of ideas… some of which look like they’d be interesting. These are more pure-picture collages, but some of them have a decidedly odd look to them. This, though pretty far from the media types you’re looking at, has some nice compositional elements that may prove useful. The stuff here has the same issue; not the kind of thing you’re really looking for, but some cool ideas that would translate easily.

    … heh. I somehow doubt this is going to get through Akismet.

  29. Mag, I was just coming to say that I found you in Akismet! And here you are. I’m going to see if I can get a good photo of how it turned out.

    Next time I do it, I’m going to A. have someone else take the phone and b. buy the creepy bits off the internet ahead of time.

    Mine didn’t really end up being creepy, but I do think it turned out cool.

    Okay, off to see if the phone will take a good picture.

  31. The cool thing about makeup is not so much that it transforms our looks, but that it transforms our confidence about our looks. You look great, but like others have said, it’s not because you look so different from how you look all the time; it’s mostly because you look like you’re not afraid of the camera.

    The creepy picture, though, may need to be done through effects, as Magniloquence has suggested.

  32. Pingback: Sparkwood & 21 » Blog Archive » Things For Which I Am Grateful

  33. Apparently I’m farther behind in my blog reading than I realized b/c I’m just now seeing this but had to comment anyway!

    You look mahvelous!! (And as everyone has already said, you always do!)

    I tend to think I look way better with make-up on than without and totally cringe when my picture is taken sans make-up.

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