Self portrait

This was a fun one to shoot! I live in the second floor of a two-story home. I took the center post out of my bogen tripod, then took two c-stands with gobo heads, put clamps on the gobo heads, and attached the center post to the clamps. I attached my Minolta 80-200 f/2.8 to the post, and my Maxxum 7 to the lens, pointing straight down. I set the lens to 200 mm. Then I maneuvered the camera out of my second floor window, and set it for 10 second timer mode. I went downstairs and outside, and leaned a ladder up against the house, climbed up, pressed the shutter release, slid down the ladder, stepped onto the pre-determined spot, and looked up into the lens until I could see the aperture clearly.

Of course, I was a bit winded, but I don't think you can tell in the picture. I tried this maybe five times, and this was my favorite, pretty much exactly how I had envisioned it.

I focused by taking the tripod legs, putting them on the spot I intended to stand, and set their height to the height of my eyes when I was looking up. Worked like a charm. :-)