'Special' - lovely topic with a warm fuzzy feeling. So what's special to me - family, friends, our dogs, photography, the garden, the Forest, the beach - in other words, lots of things to chose from. So I've chosen a set of salt, pepper and mustard pots. Why?
Many, many years ago I worked at Wedgwoods, the pottery factory recently taken into Administration. I was secretary to the Finance Director but would always take the opportunity to go through the factory to get from A to B because I found it fascinating. In the Design Studio one day I commented to the Design Manager that I liked an experimental salt and pepper pot he'd made and wondered if they would go into production. The answer was no, because the technical constraints would make them too expensive to market. Pity, because I really liked them.
Time passed and I met my knight in shining armour (MrJG) and when we were getting married and moving away from Stoke, I had to leave an interesting job which I'd loved.
It was the tradition in the pottery industry for girls leaving to get married to be given a china tea service. But imagine my amazement when on opening our wedding present from the company there was a beautiful tea service - and the salt and pepper pot. The final small package was the mustard pot, which had been made specially for me.
I think my long-suffering boss was so relieved his scatty young secretary was moving on!
So the photographic challenge this week was to come up with something different from last week's chalk and cheese.
Three black items on a white background?? errr, noooooo. So inspired by Dave Kiddle's reflections shots in this 365 (many thanks, Dave - I hope you don't mind) I decided to put them on a mirror. As usual, natural light, no light tent. Yes, I am barking mad. :bang:
This week's challenge has resulted in the most work, the most frustration and the biggest gap between the concept and realistion of the concept so far.
Lessons learned:
1 Don't try to be such a smart ****
2 Getting it as right as possible in camera is preferable to stretching limited PS skills beyond my capabilities.
3 It's difficult to make 3 black objects look interesting without lights.
4 Mirrors have a magnetic attraction for dust.
5 Wiping the dust off a mirror makes even more dust.
6 Mirrors reflect things you don't want in the picture as well as those you do.
7 If I'm going to do a whole string of adjustments in PS I need to plan the order or work carefully - prefereably on a piece of paper which I don't lose half-way through.
8 Quick Mask on PS is not quick in my hands!
9 Despite this shot driving me bonkers this week, I have actually enjoyed it and used several tools on PS which were new to me.
And the gap between what I wanted and what I ended up with was I wanted to fade the reflection out to nothing towards the bottom of the shot. I tried the Gradient tool and couldn't get it to look right. Something to learn for another time.
Thanks for looking.
Jean
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