Week 31 ~ Books

 

Late again in blogging about The Project and now of course my mind is formulating Week 33 (which is proving trickier than I had thought). The theme for week 31 was "books" and you would think I'd have plenty of them at home to choose from, but I wanted to include lots and lots more books - and without having to empty the shelves and stacking the books nicely in just the right position. That would involve dusting  the shelves at some point and I'm pretty sure that's not part of The Project.

So it made sense to go to a place that has oodles of books, stacked floor to ceiling and in piles on the floor. There are quite a few second hand book shops here in the Blue Mountains and they're run by people who are passionate about their books. For this particular week's photo, I chose "Blue Dragon Books" located at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Diane is the owner, and Blue Dragon has been in Glenbrook for about 4 years, it's tucked in a little arcade and you know the doors are open by the big trolley full of books stacked by the door. I've been in a few second hand bookshops over the years and I have to say that Blue Dragon is well laid out, beautifully stocked and well lit. You can also read a great review for it here.

I set up my little corner, and tried to visualise what I wanted the final image to look like. By the way, I think this is really important  - to be able to visualise what it is you're trying to create. In my case, if I didn't do this, I think I'd still be sitting, pondering in the Blue Dragon, working out how to shoot "books".... anyway, while I was setting up, customers came and went and chatted with Diane about various titles and the merits of reading. What a great way to spend the day!

The book I'm holding up, and weighs a tonne, is titled "Faces - A Narrative History of the Portrait in Photography" by Ben Maddow. What a serendipitous find! I had asked Diane if she could think of any large book she may have in stock that would have a woman's face on the cover - and she came up with this. Not only is it perfect for the shot, but I now own it, as it's just what I had been looking for. The original owner of the book was Colleen, and her parents had given it to her for Christmas back in 1982. I'm sure she pored over the pages in the same way I am.

Camera details for the shot - I used the nifty fifty lens with the 430 exII flash mounted and bounced on the ceiling. f5.6 and iso200.

Week 25 ~ Someone You Love

 

There was MOTH* insisting that I photograph our dog as that's the "Someone I Love", but really, I knew he saw this as his opportunity to feature in one of my photographic projects. He complained during Project365 that I didn't feature him in a photo, but that's not true at all. He was in one photo. And yes, it is also true that my dog features in quite a few of the photographs, as seen here, here and here. There are others, but I won't link you - you might see a trend developing. So during the week, I told MOTH to be prepared to pose for me, and that I wanted a standard portrait, nothing fancy dancy was required of him. What I didn't tell him was that I would actually be cropping his head out of the composition. Not because he's not photogenic, but because I think his rugby neck is more suited to having motor magazines poking out from it, like a magazine stand. (And my goodness, there are enough car magazines in the house to paper the walls so thickly that we wouldn't be able to fit in the rooms after they'd been papered. MOTH never throws out a car magazine, so if you're in need of finding out information about a particular edition of Wheels from 1982, he's probably got that so drop me a line if you need a copy of the article from page 14.) That and as I was planning the shoot, I thought it a great idea to match the Faceless Self-Portrait from back in Week 10. That way I can get them both printed and framed and hung in the bedroom for posterity.

I haven't upgraded my camera as yet, and seeing as I sold the 50D recently, I used the work camera, also a Canon, as it was more familiar to me than the Olympus Pen I have. After fiddling with all settings, taking the required shots then packing the lights and gear away, I realised that I had forgotten to set the camera to RAW. Gah! Never mind, I managed.

And in other news...I forgot to mention that my image Narrabeen Sunrise features on the Canon Academy website. How cool is that!

* MOTH - years ago, I remember reading Pat McDermott's very funny column "Family Matters", humourous tales about her family life, in the Australian Woman's Weekly. She used the term MOTH to refer to her husband. Meaning, Man Of The House, I admit that I wish I had come up with the acronym, but all credit goes to Ms McDermott. And all the other acronyms for referring to husbands - well, they just sound a little too twee. Yes, more twee than MOTH.

Week 7 ~ Eyes

~ If we couldn't dream...~

I have to admit that I rolled my eyes when I saw this week's topic. I'm not anti-eyes or anti-eyelashes in photography, it just meant that I had to think about trying something different that wasn't going to be too clichéd. I could be wrong, and this open/closed eye thing could be cliché too! I didn't want to create a doe-eyed look, or a eyelash macro, or capture my dog's eyes, or anything too sweet and pretty - I wanted something a little different.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a blog that showcased B&W sleeping portraits. Many of the shots were quite haunting and there was one - with its eyes open/shut - that really stood out for me, so this week I tried my hand at interpreting it in my way. When I had to think of a title for the portrait, my immediate thought was "awake is the new sleep" until I realised that's also the name of a Ben Lee album - and that's a little too twee for me. That's when I stumbled upon this quote 

"If we couldn't dream, our lives wouldn't mean anything anymore" 

by George Kaiser in The Raft of the Medusa, and I thought it fitted much better with what I was trying to portray.

Many thanks to my model Ashleigh who patiently posed for this shot.