Next lifetime I want to be photogenic

This is a first. I just spent literally hours taking pictures of myself. I think I started at 4:00ish, putting makeup on and I mean the whole deal. It took a long time. The first round of shots I took were horrible. It's so pathetic. I had to draw on eyebrows so they would show in the flash. I've never done that so they were pretty lopsided but I couldn't deal with starting over, so I just went with it. I took about 75 shots to get three I could sort of live with. I'm just so unphotogenic.

Why did I indulge in this orgy of narcissim you ask? True it's not like me but I promised DetNews a new head shot almost a year ago and I was determined to get it done this weekend. I know I could have just gone to a real photog, and I had an ongoing email correspondence going on with one but I just couldn't make an appointment. I have to be in the mood to do the photo thing and I never am. Particularly since I've gained so much weight since I've lived here.

In any event, I decided to just take the shots with my own camera since it has a self portrait feature. So I have these three shots and I can't figure out which one to use. I look at these photos and I don't even recognize myself. It's like who is this pudgy old person? What happened to that skinny, daring young woman who jumped out of airplanes?

But I digress. I need to decide which one to use for now so I decided to build up to it but posting them here first. My software has this funny feature, so these are the cartoon versions. I'll be using the even less attractive, real life versions at DetNews, but I thought I'd conduct an informal poll.

None are perfect, but each has its own charm. The first one, my hair looks really grey but I like the brick wall symbolism. Most days, that's what I feel like I'm up against and it's the longest shot, so it's the kindest in the real life version.

The second shot, I like the folksy background with the shed that looks like a barn but in the real life version, the shadows hit so it looks like there's a booger in my nose. Maybe it's just me, what do you think? I don't think that it can be fixed, but in a 90 pix version, it probably won't be noticeable.

The last one I just don't know. That black stuff on my mouth is the shine from my lipstick in the real life version but I think it makes me look the most jowly. On the other hand, my hair looks the best in that one and I think the angle makes my eyes look kind of like the Mona Lisa. Try it. They sort of follow you around. It has a sort of in your face quality that I like too. So what do you folks think?