No Fear? Is that possible?

I am learning, as difficult as that may be, to NOT be afraid of myself in front of the camera. I have joined a group a talented ladies who, like myself, want to take better pictures. Our first assignment was a self portrait. Aaaagh!!!

Not owning a tripod (for obvious self-conscious reasons), I am forced to hold my camera at arm's length to get a shot. I didn't use a flash or have the light on in the room, so the lighting is totally natural. Most of my attempts came out blurry (I guess I am getting old and shaky), and there were some that just didn't look right. But I challenged myself to take the not so interesting ones, and the "oops, how's that get there?" ones, and see what I could do to fix them with my photo program. I must say that most of the time I really LOVE my PSE 5.0... and this is no exception!

So, without further a-do... introducing ME!ok, that didn't hurt too bad, let's try another one...I softened the colors here, and I think it has a more peaceful feeling to it, don't you?

Moving on----> This one has the saturation almost down to zero. Interesting, but I'm not sure...

So then I wondered if I could get Chloe to co-operate with me...

...and I ended up with a little lovin' just as I snapped the picture! How lucky is that? So we took a couple more, but this one turned out the best, and I played around with it in PSE for a little while.

I'm not sure which one I like better. The contrast is great in the first one, because I can see Chloe pretty well, but I like the softness of the second one...Hmmmm.

Moving on (I am getting over my nervous, sick to my stomach feeling... these didn't turn out quite as bad as they used to. Thank God for PSE!!)

I started looking at the ones that I would never keep, and tried to see if I could salvage SOMETHING. This is what I have after the cutting room floor is full:

This one got a little more attention with my different filter settings

noise

sprayed strokes

glass

charcoal

So there you have it... my portrait session with myself! Comments are most welcome!