Week 37 ~ Sensual

I did say I had an exciting announcement to make, but this post isn't it. This post is going to be super short because I have things occupying my mind at the moment and it's too difficult to concentrate on much else. Plus, it's a great excuse to use for this post because I really wasn't looking forward to this particular brief ~ sensual ~ blergh, what even is 'sensual'? When you're on the wrong side of forty and the media only shows you twenty-somethings (and even younger) as the 'model' for womanhood, you do start to feel inadequate, invisible, and well and truly past it. So that every time I thought about this brief during the week, I would wince and roll my eyes and spit out "stupid senshool brief, what the hell am I going to shoot for it"... So this was the result - lensbaby, lots of blur, cropping of the face, dark and B&W. I'm simply too old, too tired, and way too worried about other things to really care. Blergh!

Week 36 ~ Movement

Whoever said "to kill two birds with one stone" needs a serious smack in the head because they've obviously never applied this to a photography project. Ridiculous saying that when applied to said photography project, leaves you feeling uber-frustrated and ready to pack in the whole thing. If I remember rightly, I was trying to combine the theme of the Project 52 ~ movement ~ with the sub 12 (a friendly and talented bunch of photographers over on flickr) brief of "little people". These little people are HO gauge people used by railway enthusiasts to populate the mini towns they create in their lounge rooms or garages. I mean, it would be silly to go to all the trouble to build a miniature railway setting complete with town and surrounding countryside, and not have little people to populate them. It wouldn't be normal at all, and be a bit zombie apocalype-like to not include these 2cm high humans in the settings. And yes, you read correctly, they are 2cm or so in height, if you don't believe me, then check here, here and here to see the wide variety of little characters you can buy from your favourite hobby store.

I tried to create a scene what showed both the little person and movement and I can tell you it was a most frustrating day. So much so, that when I saw the Canon Photo5 briefs this year included a "little people" brief, well I'll keep it polite and say that I simply exclaimed "oh fiddlesticks". Needless to say, I enjoy what little sanity I have and so submitted the above image to the Photo5 brief. Click here if you would like to see all my submissions for this year's Photo5.

Speaking of sanity or lack thereof, stay tuned to this blog, for an exciting and most ridiculous announcement shall be made in the coming days.

Week 35 ~ Glass

You know, perhaps I should have combined this post with the last, as I was still enthralled with the whole capturing water thang. While this week's theme was glass, I couldn't resist using some food colouring and a fast running tap (sorry Sydney Water...) to shoot even more images of water, this time - in a wine glass! And talk about a ghetto set up, the above shot was set up in the kitchen sink with the OCF pointing to the side of the sink and bouncing onto the glasses I had set up in the sink. Of course, the blur and bokeh is due to the Lensbaby Composer, a most magical lens.

The shot below used a similar set up, this time instead of the kitchen sink, I had the wine glasses placed within a white box and bounced the OCF away from the glasses thereby diffusing the light. Using selective focus, I wanted to convey the 'barely there' qualities glass can sometimes have:

If you are interested, the first image above is available for sale over at Red Bubble here.

Week 34 ~ Water

Just when you think photography can't possibly get any more addictive, you stumble upon the water drop technique. Not having time to shoot any other forms of "water" for this week's theme, I set about trying to capture a water drop in motion. The youtube tutorial below is the one I followed - very easy to understand and you don't require a lot of fancy-dancy equipment. I highly recommend you watch it and then gather all your gear and start having some fun:

The shot required very little editing, just some curves, levels and saturation alterations. Had I not filled the 8GB card, twice, I would have happily kept shooting for the rest of the evening. A little too addictive is this capturing of falling water drops... Especially when you think the next shot is going to be The Shot... Even though the dozens and dozens of shots you've already taken qualify as being The Shot! Here's another shot from the same session:

Go on, I dare you to watch the tutorial above and resist the urge to experiment with this technique! Try it out using food colouring, milk or other liquids.

These images are available for sale over at Red Bubble here and here as well as over at Artflakes, here.

PS. I know. This week is actually Week 42 and not week 34 at all. I'm simply trying to slow down time for you :)

Week 33 ~ Favourite Outfit

This brief was a lot more difficult than I would have thought it would be. Everyone has a favourite outfit, don't they? It took me all week to think of what items I would include - the black and white dress? But which one, all three of them are nice, but they're not 'favourite' material. The red dress? No, not quite. T-shirts? Shirts? What about the french cuff shirt? Nope. In the end I chose items that I thought would look nice in a photo. Is that cheating on the brief, after all I haven't included my favourite items but items that I thought would look nice together. I knew roughly how I wanted the shot to look - like a fashion editorial that you'd see on some random blog. And to that end I hope I achieved that goal. 

And that brings me to the book I've just finished reading, "The Secret Lives of Dresses" by Erin McKean. I remember buying it a few months ago and popping it on the pile ready for reading. I had read a positive review about it and I was looking forward to it being a good read. I don't want to be negative about the book, other than to say that it wasn't the book for me. I've either mistaken this book for another one written about a similar topic (vintage dresses) or I read far too much into the review. Or maybe I'm just not enough of a fashionista and simply didn't appreciate the narrative. 

So, now I have several questions for you - do you have a favourite outfit? Do you know of another chick-lit novel about vintage dresses that you can recommend to me? Have I confused the secret lives of dresses with another chick-lit novel? Did you enjoy reading Secret Lives of Dresses?