Oh yeah, that's professional

Turns out, I helped my boss write an article for a trade magazine, and they need photos of us to run with it.  My boss has a picture on file.  (Hell, he's got one on the wall, too.)

I, on the other hand, not so much.

Yesterday, I found out they needed the picture.  I had to deliver it today.  This gave me limited options.

When I got home from work last night, I was not exactly at my photogenic best.  It would be a total waste of time, I figured, to shower and do my hair at 9:00 p.m. to take a picture when I could take the picture this morning on my way to work.  Being all freshly showered and stuff.

It seemed like a good plan at the time.

So, I get out of the shower, put all sorts of "product" in my hair, throw on a nice blouse and a suit jacket (didn't need the skirt -- it's only a headshot) and got ready to take the picture.

I have a plethora of digital cameras to choose from.  I grab my main camera.  It's only 2.0 megapixels, but I like to travel with it because it's waterproof.  ANYWAY, I stand in the hallway, aim the camera in the vague direction of my head, and take a picture.

The camera turns off.  I turn it on again, look at the photo, delete the photo, aim the camera back at my head (with what I hope is slightly better aim) and take another picture.  Turns out I hadn't recharged the batteries on this thing, so now it was determined to shut off every time the flash went off. 

It wouldn't matter if I could just get a decent picture.  But I couldn't. 

The following is -- I kid you not -- one of the better ones:

Seriously.  You should see the lovely shots right up my nostrils.

Apparently, my arms are not long enough to do this properly.  I can't find a decent surface on which to put the camera (to do this on time-delay) and the cat has not yet mastered photography.

I give up on this camera.  I switch to the one built-in on my laptop.  Here, I can stand in front of a wall, hold my laptop in front of me, watch the image on the screen, and snag the photo when it actually looks right.  It's a perfect plan.

This was not the right time to discover the camera built-in on my laptop is broken.  Nothin' but blackness and static on the screen.  (I thought, "hmm, adjust the brightness."  Then it was whiteness and static.)

I only have one camera left.  A tiny little pocket camera about the size of ... the size of one of them new ipod shuffles.  It is very limited in what it can do -- but one thing it can do that the other camera can't is hook up to my PC and show me the picture on the screen.  The problem here is that its cord is very, very short, so I have to be very near my PC to take the picture.  If I take the picture sitting at my desk, you get a shot of the whole room behind me.

I curl up on the floor, wedging myself against the side of the sofa, where there's nothing but wall behind me.  Aim the camera at myself.  I've got a reasonably good angle on the screen, and from here, the photo doesn't look bad.

Until I actually open it up and take a look at it.

I mean, it's definitely an improvement.  But, y'know, flyaway hair, shiny white nose, and not exactly the smile I'm going for.

I give up.  I've run out of cameras.  I go back on the computer and look for anything where I can safely crop out my face.  I find one ... it's seven years old and I certainly can't use the original, but if I turn it into greyscale it looks just about ... right.

In case you were wondering, I would have serious copyright issues if I used the original: