Taking a Photo of Yourself for Internet Dating Sites

As I have said in previous posts, I am mid-divorce after almost 32 years of marriage.  My daughters encouraged me to go onto a dating website.  In fact, one of them helped me.  BUT - I needed a photo.  Crap.  I am always the one TAKING the photos so I am not in many.  And I have just lost some weight so those old ones were not the best.  I did manage to dig up two and crop the other people out to save them from embarrassment.  But now it was, to borrow a line from the movie Sunset Boulevard, "...time for my closeup, Mr. DeMille".

I know that good lighting can sometimes fill in the laugh lines or other creases that are engraved on the face, so I set up a ladder in front of the sliding doors in the bedroom where the light comes in all morning.  I positioned the camera on the little flat, flip-down tray that holds a paint can.  So now what to wear?

I started with a turtleneck in an effort to hide my neck.  I looked more like, well, you know where a balloon starts going into the knot, how it all gathers up?  I looked like the turtle was the knot and my head was the balloon.  OK - changed into a V-neck top in an effort to elongate myself, as the magazines tell you to do.  But there it was - my neck, with its creases from too many nights of reading while in bed. 

So I got tape, yes I did, and I put in on my neck, behind my right ear, and then drew it around and attached it behind my left ear.  VOILA!  Instant necklift!  I got myself in front of the camera, pressed the self-timer, and when I smiled...POP!  The tape came off.  I laughed so hard at myself - how ridiculous.  It was then that I decided that I am just fine as I am.  I earned every bit of those laugh lines.  I can't help but wonder, though, if I would have an allergic reaction to DuctTape...