For my self portrait I chose to use colors found in nature; those colors being blue, green, and brown. This is an analogous color scheme as they are adjacent to one another on the color wheel.

The images in the collage represent me as I see myself: an outdoorsy geek. I am a professional software engineer by trade and craft, but I try to spend as much time outside enjoying nature as possible.

The wide expanse of blue represents the infinite sky and the vastness of nature. It humbles the rest of the objects in the collage as it does in real life. The green tree represents life, wandering in many different directions yet firmly attached to its roots. It strives to reach the heavens but remains grounded in reality.

The figure in the collage is a stack of books, representing my voracious appetite for the printed page. I read whenever I can find a spare minute -- in the morning while waking up, during the day while having lunch or taking a break from work, and at night before falling asleep. The figure of books also represents the knowledge gained from what I have read since I retain much of what I read.

The head of the figure is a portable digital assistant, or PDA. This represents my analytical nature, always questioning, interpreting, processing. In grade school I was called somewhat derisively " The computer who wore tennis shoes", a witticism that was no doubt inspired by the movie of the same name by Walt Disney. It also represents my occupation and my fascination with all things computational: math, computers, science.