Mono Monday: Out of my comfort zone

I very much think that this will not be an original thought, but as soon as I saw the theme set by KangaZu for today, I immediately knew what I was going to have to do: I'll have a go at most kinds of photography, but I'm not a good portrait photographer, and I absolutely hate anyone pointing a camera at me. All around Iceland, R and I watched couples taking selfies in front of the wonderful sights, and shook our heads at each other in bemusement: surely the point of taking travel photos is to remind yourself afterwards of the places you've visited, and not to prove that you were there yourself? It always makes me think of the Travelling Gnome from Amélie.

Processing photos of my own face was a weird experience. As anyone who knew him could confirm, I look very like my Dad - in fact, one of his friends came up to me at Dad's funeral and said that as long as I was still alive, H would never entirely have left the planet (I knew that he meant it kindly and I responded with grace, though I actually wanted to deliver a good kick to his shin). So it was a bizarre - and rather tear-jerking - piece of synchronicity that while I was editing my images, my iPod suddenly decided to play this.

Cheers, iPod - I owe you one. And not in a good way.

By the way, with this shot I was aiming for the kind of low-key portrait described in this tutorial - though my lighting is rather less dramatic.