May 14th - May 20th 2007
Sunday Calabrese
Saturday Sidebottom
Friday FLOWERWORKS
Thursday Going equipped
Wednesday Tulip
Tuesday Paraquatted
Monday Gerbera
Sunday 20th May
Calabrese, Winter 2006
Saturday 19th May
Some confusion at work, when a story headlined
Sidebottom adds perfect line and length
turned out to be from the sports desk; I'd assumed it was fashion.
Friday 18th May
INDOOR FLOWERWORKS
[click for 30 pix]
Thursday 17th May
A fairy goes into a tool shop
One area of photography I was definitely keen to get back into when I laid out for all this new camera kit was close-up work in general, and flowers in particular.
It's tricky for all sorts of reasons, not least the challenge of trying to negotiate the line between the glory that God gives, and the art you're adding: the difference between a photograph of something beautiful and a beautiful photograph.
(Ideally, you'd want a beautiful photograph of something beautiful, but..hey.)
It's a technical challenge, too, of course - largely on account of the lighting which, in a perfect world would call for a barrage of sophisticated flash kit, bounced, balanced and bound together in a web of synchronised blitz.
In fact, most of the photographs you've been subjected too here lately have been taken with the aid of nothing more expensive than a couple of halogen desk-lamps; one of the joys of digital photography is that you can pre-balance colour temperatures to cope with any light source.
Not that it hasn't cost me several arms and a leg in additional kit: yer standard halogen bulb puts out a hell of a lot less light than a flash unit, calling for exposures of up to four seconds or more, so you need to invest in a rock-solid tripod (or two or...um..four? I blame eBay).
I'd also given a lot of thought to the table-top set-up I'd need to arrange subject-matter, lamps, back-cloths, reflectors with maximum flexibility.Some kind of work-bench seemed called for, with - ideally - the chance to add some kind of rod-and-clamp framework to which I could fix a variety of light-sources at all sorts of distances and angles. (I have longer-term plans to experiment with two or more mini-Maglites.)
And so, eventually, I took myself up the road to the Machine Mart on The Highway, a kind of heavy-duty ironmongers with windows that display concrete-mixers, hot-air blowers and seventy-three varieties of wrench: not my natural habitat.
After only a couple of minutes, it was pretty clear that the majority of their retail activity is extraordinarily task-oriented (white van screams to a halt outside, overweight man in mud-crusted dungarees rushes in, shouts "...looking for a D252 with a 32mill thread hydrotwist..", throws crumpled notes on counter, rushes out).
I wandered around looking for work-benches, stroking my chin as I contemplated drill-stands, axle-grinders and other, more mysterious, clumps of red-painted metal.
By the time the burly shop-assistant cornered me with a "CannIyelpatall?" I'd reached the stage where I knew I wanted something a little bit like this one, but with the wheels from that one, the slots off that one, only with holes like that but bigger and...
Instead, I smiled sweetly and told him: "I'm not sure what I want, but I think I'll know it when I see it?"
I didn't need the look of disgust on his face to understand that this was not a response he had heard before.
Turned out there was nothing in Machine Mart that properly suited my purpose.Which is just as well, really, because any further conversation was bound to end wih me asking "I don't suppose you have it in black?"
Wednesday 16th May
Tulip, Spring 2007
Tuesday 15th May
Sadly, for a woman with such an obvious sense of fun, the most enjoyment we could get out of the tragic demise of Isabella Blow came from re-assuring the younger members of our team that, no, Paraquat is not a new brand of alco-pop.
Monday 14th May
Gerbera, Winter 2006
......previous week
