See me at work.

Here's a time lapse video of me working, last week, for Michael Mahovlich, one of the photographer's that I assist.   Every day is different, which I love.  This is the first time I've worked on shooting a car.   The video was made by Michael and the very talented Digital Artist Esther.  You can see me waving near the end.   Someday I'll own a studio and a light that big, someday.   ;)

The morning after.

This is what our apartment looks like at the moment. 

Last night we hosted a very successful and entertaining Wine & Cheese party.

In short - we invited people over and asked them to bring wine and/or cheese.   We provided crackers, meats, things like olives, etc,  desserts and snacks. 
We had about 10 different types of cheese in the end, and 9+ liters of wine were consumed.

And now, I'm on my way into work.  haha.  No it's true.  But I'll survive.  

I had planned to take pictures of the tablescape - with my carefully selected blue, white, turquoise and silver colour scheme.   However, when it happens to be one of those days when everything takes longer than it should (an hour to get meats and cheese and baguettes at the grocery store !>#*JF!) and your first guest shows up while you're putting on your makeup, and you stash all things without a home into one room, close the door and hope no one thinks that it might be the bathroom because you worked 60 hours this week- you let things like blog photos slide.  Or at least I do. 
I suppose we can try again next year.

I hope you're enjoying the holiday season.

~mel

Another school assignment: Glass.

I can't believe how fast November flew.   I've only got 2 weeks left of class and am shooting my final assignment pieces.  Here's the most recent one we've critiqued.  The assignment: photograph something glass.

I chose this Paris Amour perfume from Bath & Body works for a few reasons, none of which were that I wear perfume.  

1.  The bottle was cute and I liked the pink.  

2.  The name Paris Amour was a nice jumping off point for loads of ideas.  

3.  It was $15 for the set.  

4.  I needed a perfume that would look nice with the vintage lace I wanted to use.   

5.  Perfume seemed more exciting than any other glass things I own.

As usual, the first shot is a standard product shot - simple and lit with extreme attention. 

Glass is tricky because it's really easy to just make things flat.   You have to add black, reflecting in the glass, to be able to get some definition back.   I had originally propped a necklace with the bottle, but ultimately it didn't add anything.  

The second phase of the assignment was to shoot more conceptually and creatively.  I had a lot of fun playing with this.  Some times more successfully than others.

I started with the bottle lying on some fabric with a Paris map print.  I don't even think I printed this to bring to class. 

On my way home from work the next day I grabbed some roses, and tried this.

The roses and bottle are on a piece of glass, which is about a foot above a white dish with rose petals in the water. 
At the critique this one was tossed aside because "what you see through the bottle looks like crap."

Live and learn.  Next time I should have the bottle even higher than the roses and no clutter near the logo.

This next one was hugely time consuming.  I put the bottle on a sheet of sparkly black paper, turned off all the lights, put on black gloves and painted the light into the photo with a flashlight.  This one my prof just LOVED.   Everyone in class tried to guess how I did it.  I'm still not satisfied with the bottom 1/4 of the photo, but in my 200+ attempts at getting the swooshes to land in the right place, this was the best one.

My personal favourite shot is actually this one.  The bottle was on the same sparkly black paper, and I used the flashlight to illuminate the area behind the bottle to get the sparkles to shimmer. 

It reminds me of Paris at night, all twinkly and magical.

Which one do you think works best?  Would any of them make you want to try the perfume?