Week 17’s creepy self portrait was taken Saturday night at about 5 minutes to midnight, and was not at all what I planned. Life rarely is, though.

I drove to visit my sister, who was visiting from our home state of Washington, and realized as I packed my bags to head down that I’d forgotten to take a self portrait this week. I threw my tripod and remote in the backseat and headed out. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive and I had some stops to make, so I knew I was cutting it close.

So I had a few ideas for self portraits revolving around driving, since I do that a lot. (Like probably way more than I should.) I often drive alone, since it’s me going to work during the day, or me driving to a shoot, or me going down to my parents’, which only includes Soner about half of the time. It’s definitely lonely, and I was feeling it as I went through the deep country dark. Really, the only company I had was Muse and the gigantic bugs splattering all over the front of my car. Eugh.

Of course, as I scrambled to set up my tripod and cram the photo in, my remote trigger decided to give up on me. At the same time, my trusty 50mm decided it had no idea what to do in a dark scenario. Various family members offered to just take the photo for me, which in most people’s minds is a very sensible solution but I think photographers are a different and more difficult breed than that. So rather than get the shot I wanted, I threw together the above. I don’t do the creepy self portrait thing often, but I really should.

I actually kinda like it. Driving out into the middle of Florida at night is a creepy endeavor. My parents do live in a subdivision of sorts, but it’s almost the wild west of subdivisions since it’s all but stopped development for decades and is pretty far away from most things you’d call a city. You can see every star – and every pair of eyes in the trees.