A Spy (That Looks Just) Like Me!

I feel like I've written about this before, but there is one question on the dating website I use that asks "If you don't do anything for a day, how do you feel? Good or bad?" and today was a day that I would answer "Bad". On one hand, I didn't just sit in front of YouTube all day and a complete lack of productivity. On the other hand, I still have things to do for work that are lingering from the semester. I'm kind of in the mindset that since it's the weekend, I'm okay with being less productive as long as have personally and professionally productive strides during the week.

In terms of the some of the fun stuff, I helped get the ball rolling on making a musical in the Nerdfighter group, I played some Portal 2 (and planned out what I would need to do to get all the remaining achievements), and started up a photography project.

By the way, today's holiday is Positive Power of Humor and Creativity Days (it was technically Friday through Sunday), so it fits together. Two summers ago, I was attempting a 365Days Project (taking a self-portrait everyday for a year) and one day I was indecisive on what to do, so I saw some groups that offered daily themes. One said "body double shot" (where you edit multiple photos together) and another said "finger guns". Since the students were gone for the summer, I decided to merge the two ideas and have a spy shot. One 'me' was the agent, hiding around a corner in a tuxedo jacket. Two other 'mes' were walking down the hallway, finger guns ready. I was really happy how it all turned out (especially considering my "tripod" was a pile of boxes sitting on a water fountain and "Photoshop" was Microsoft Paint), so I posted it to Facebook. I definitely saw an explosion of likes and positive comments, so it's stuck around as my Facebook cover photo still.

Fast forward to this summer and I want to do things to make this summer memorable. As in, not just spending my free time in front of my computer monitor or TV. So, I thought it would be fun to have another go with the body double photos. I'm going to go with a spy theme, and so far, I have four distinct characters planned, along with generic henchmen. For today, I finalized the costume/prop list per character and made the first photo to introduce "The Hero".

The general form is relatively the same as my picture from two years ago, but there are some notable changes: 3 henchmen instead of 2, "actual" weapons, the henchmen are dead, etc. I'm not sure how often I'll make new photos, but I have at least three other shots in mind and they will all be in different locations. Granted, you will probably see yellow walls again if you want to follow this project, but I'm going to avoid multiple shots of a long hallway. Similar to last time, I am just using Microsoft Paint for the editing, which does mean that I'll notice little imperfections while I'm putting it together. The trickiest thing is the shadows and reflections since each person can have a couple of each. (For example, the closest henchmen almost lost part of his foot's second shadow.) So, by doing this project, it will give me good practice on these body double shots and, in keeping with today's holiday, be something that's fun and creative.

Well, that was the biggest part of my day to report. Here's looking to tomorrow. First day of classes. Wish me luck. DFTBA.