I used to love Flickr, back when that was a thing. What I did was, I’d take all my reference shots, y’know, the ones I took for drawings, and I’d clean them up and upload them as art. Then, I’d sit back and see if anyone noticed. (Spoiler: they didn’t.)
I posted a whole series of me dressed as birds, standing on chairs and flapping my arms. There were ones of me brandishing knives, me holding rats, me standing on chairs. Me in my wheelchair, surrounded by bin bags. Most were of me, come to think of it. Nobody else wanted to sit for me, perhaps having seen my art.
Anyway, here’s one I’ve just found on my hard drive—a reference shot that never got to be art, for what should be obvious reasons.
Obviously, I don’t really look like that. I mean, I guess I do, kind of, but I don’t usually lie on the floor like a bag of old corpsemeat, with the camera looking up my nose.
This is the most unflattering portrait of me in existence, and maybe the most unflattering portrait of anyone. Why I’d post it online is beyond me. Actually, I do like the lighting, and I think my feet look nice. The rest of me, dear God! I must’ve been ill. (Though, I’ve always had a tendency to look dead in photos. I think it’s the colour of my skin. I don’t get much sun, and with the flash on, well. Tragedy.)
I’m supposed to be shooting more reference, right now, but I’m sitting around looking through my archives, hoping to spare myself the bother. Nothing quite fits, but it’s a good waste of time.
(They are nice feet, aren’t they? Those aren’t monkey toes. They’re…prehensile extremities.)
RG Double Ghost 