Chez Spud

Camera Club: Special Edition…what I learnt this week

spudballoo — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:49:49 +0000

Ooooh Camera Club, haven’t done this for a while…have the biscuits gone stale in our absence? Should we get the club going again? Anyone need any help with anything, got a question…if so please leave a comment and I’ll wrap them up in subsequent Camera Club post. I’ve had a few email questions recently too, perhaps I’ll bundle those discussions in to the post too.

So, what did I learn this week? I’ve been doing a photoshoot this week for Gallery Thea, a lovely local ceramics shop and below are just a few of the shots. Thea needed a portfolio of images for promotional purposes: general shots of the gallery, product shots of specific items and some portraits of her. I did two separate shoots; one in the gallery (general shots and portraits) and another at home in my make very shift ’studio’ (product shots).

The shoot in the gallery was reasonably straightforward, although the light towards the back of the shop is a bit challenging…a little dark and a little ‘yellow’ too. Ideally I’d have turned the lights off for the shot above, but the light was too gloomy back there to take it without an additional light source. Hmm, an additional light source that isn’t overhead spots that can be moved around and controlled…where could I get such a thing?

Conversely, the light at the front of the shop (where there is a lovely big bay window) was very bright, a little harsh in fact although it suits Thea’s white/brights ceramics quite well. I think something up at the window to diffuse the light would have helped. I know that clear shower curtains are often suggested, and I’d considered taking one along but I couldn’t think how I’d fix it up easily and quickly. Later I discovered that bubble wrap would have been perfect, and one thing a ceramics shop isn’t short of is rolls and rolls of bubble wrap!

We tried some portraits of Thea seated in the window. The light is a bit hard on the side of her face, but we used a gold reflector which has dealt with the worst of the harsh light and also given Thea a nice warm ‘glowy’ look. She’s a bit camera shy, actually she’s very camera shy. I think the portrait shoot was like a kind of living nightmare for her, poor thing! Me: “OK, look up, slightly to the left, lift your chin…ok, try not to look suicidal….” She really didn’t want a traditional head and shoulders looking at the camera and cheesy smile shot, so we went for a more relaxed/candid style. There are lots more portraits but I’ll spare her blushes (by the way, I do have her permission to write this post!).

Lesson I wish I had learnt: how to fold up that damn reflector. It’s a huge circle, it’s supposed to collapse in to a much smaller circle to make it easier to carry around. The only person who knows how to do it is my 4 year old….

Another one taken in the window, with the decorations in the background diffusing the light. By now I was realising that, as I’d feared, ceramics are pretty hard to shoot. They are have a high gloss finish which means they are very reflective, and achieving perfect focus and dealing with the reflections and shadows was a challenge.

Fast forward to later that day, at home, and I start to set up my ’studio’ to do some product shots (nursery sets and name pictures). We’d decided that Thea would create some hand-drawn wallpaper to use as a backdrop for the product shots. But we hadn’t really discussed how I should do the set up, or exactly what kind of props I might use. It’s quickly became apparent that I was going to have to experiment with a couple of set ups, take some test shots and get some feedback before doing the shoot ‘for real’. I also spent some time chasing some good light around the house before, finally, settling on the floor of a bedroom. Very professional!

One of the issues the test shots raised was the wallpaper. It wasn’t wide enough, really, to cope with the set up we wanted….and it wasn’t ‘busy’ enough in terms of motifs. It didn’t matter how I tried to rearrange the ceramics on the paper, I would end up with big white gaps. The solution was for me to get busy with a scalpel and cut out some of the motifs and stick them in the gaps. If you look, you can pretty easily spot which ones are ’stuck’ on. But at the size these images will be used (small) it shouldn’t be obvious. Lesson: probably it would be easier to shoot these kind of ’set up’ shots with the client present, so they can get busy with a bit of colouring in as necessary.

The other issue was, again, the lack of controllable, even light. The lighting isn’t bad for natural light, diffused with bubble wrap at the windows, but it’s not even, the shadows aren’t really where I’d want them to be and I was at the mercy of the big shiny thing in the sky playing ball and shining. Ponders again…how can I ensure even, controllable light which doesn’t push off for months at a time?

The other problem was that I’d had to push the ISO up to deal with the relative lack of light. That’s made for some pretty chunky jpeg files to deal with. On the plus side, the lovely full-format D700 handles high ISO so well that noise hasn’t become an issue.

Finally, I moved on to the name pictures. Again, the test shots showed the wallpaper had some issues…same thing again, not really wide enough and not busy enough. That, plus slightly creamy coloured tiles and a pure white frame made these pictures especially challenging. I’d thought the reflections might be easier to handle on a ‘flat’ item like this, but in fact it was worse. The set up for these pictures took absolutely ages, I just couldn’t find a way of showcasing the product in a way that wasn’t totally flat and boring, whilst working around the wallpaper issue. After a lot of fiddling around and swearing, I finally settled on the angled approach shown above.

Other things I learned: product shots involve a LOT of blue tack. Blue tack to hold background paper in place, to hold products in place, to hold eggs in egg cups to stop them disappering. It also involves random items from around the house studio….a jar of mustard to prop the plate up…a block from the boys’ toy box to rest the name picture on to angle it up…slippers and bottles of perfume to stop the paper rolling up in to shot. It was all very high tech!

But what I really learned is that, much as I adore natural light, I’m going to have to use flash in the future for these kinds of shoots. I need to be able to have a reliable, controllable, portable source of light.

With thanks to Thea for being a super client. Looking forward to the next shoot. With flash (a-aah he’ll save every one of us).

Turning the other cheek

spudballoo — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:50:13 +0000

I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating….this….man…is…a…god. The end.

EU President, blogger, writer of haikus and all round jolly good bloke Herman van Rompuy continues to dazzle me with his general brilliance. He’s not afraid to ring the changes, switching an EU summit meeting to the intimate surroundings of an old Belgian library, banning huge entourages and forcing EU leaders to actually sit next to each other. He’s a man of bold moves.

Last week Saint Hermy demonstrated his true statesman like qualities with some elegant posturing in the face of hysterical mud flinging by a naughty British MEP (Nigel Farage) who called Our Hero a ‘damp rag’, ‘a low-grade bank clerk’ and accused him of being a ‘quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation states’. Finally, he called Belgium as a ‘non-country’. Nice. Makes me so proud to be British…

Not one to get his knickers in a twist over nothing, Hermy has said that he ‘pities’ Nigel Farage, according to the BBC site. “I found it so ridiculous that I was not even really angry…I feel pity for that kind of behaviour and that kind of man, that’s all.’ I’m wondering if he gave a little nonchalent shrug of the shoulders when he said, ‘that’s all’….I do hope so. And perhaps a kind of weary sigh? The temptation to get down and wrestle in the mud must surely be overwhelming for most people in such situations. That he chose to shrug it off and cleverly allow his opponent to make himself look absolutely ridiculous is a genius masterstroke. Queue wild applause and general cheering.

He’s understated, wise, calm, confident and self-assured. He might not be the most charismatic of leaders but he certainly has the most grace. Apparently his popularity in that ‘non country’ Belgium has never been higher after his handling of Farage-gate. He turned the other cheek and came out smelling of roses whilst Mr Nigel Fargo MEP looks like a grubby little schoolboy slinging insults. Worse, he refused to apologise for his tirade of insults and was fined by the European Parliament. Hopefully he was given detention too…100 lines and extra prep.

But what fascinated me the most about this story was this paragraph,

In his [Rompuy's] writings, he has quoted the saying “Forgive your enemies, but don’t forget their names,” adding that it is one he has applied in practice.

“It is one he has applied in practice”… I think, dear readers, we can assume that he has a Grudge Book. I knew there was a reason I love that man. I bet Nigel Fargo’s name is in it, underlined with asterisks next to it….he’ll shortly be going in to mine for Crimes Against My Love.

I must say that My Love is rather more gracious than me if, as he says, he forgives but doesn’t forget. I don’t have that capacity. Once you’re grudged, you’re grudged. The end.

Er, the end.

xxx<- for My Love

Let’s talk about love

spudballoo — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:55:46 +0000

Let’s talk about love…not romantic love because I’m too old and too married for all that.

I think we’ll stick with motherly love, altogether a much more palatable subject and very topical if you’re in the UK (since it’s Mothering Sunday here, but I think not in the US?). I was treated to breakfast in bed ‘made’ by the Megaboys: brioche (straight up, no butter, no jam), grapes and a cupcake. Strangely the cake wasn’t for me, or the grapes, and I was only allowed one brioche. But the thought was there. Later I was ’surprised’ with a bouquet of flowers, perhaps less surprising than intended since 4 year olds are totally incapable of keeping secrets (”Mummy, we’re going to surprise you with some flowers later!”). Typically, Diggy was less enthusiastic about the whole affair and woke up grumbling, “I don’t want it to be Happy Mothers Day I want to it to be LITTLE…BOYS…..DAY”.

I’ve wittered on before about motherly love or, more specifically, the feeling of being ‘in love’ (or not) with your children. I love them so much that I sometimes feel swamped by it, for want of a better word. And just when I feel like I’m drowning in love for them, it’s sometimes tempered by the knowledge that they will grow and move away and apart from me. There’s nothing I can do though, I’m programmed to love them forever. They will take my love for granted all their lives (as is right and is the natural order of things) but, as a parent, I know I should cherish these years of this exquisite, unquestioning love for me. Soon enough they will be teenagers and will think they know everything, and me and MrSpud will be so old hat, so embarrassing. So, for now, I’ll take their sweet kisses and fervent whispers of ‘you’re my BEST mummy…the best mummy in the world’ and store them up in a quiet corner of my heart…insurance for the days when doors are slammed and ‘I HATE YOU. I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN’ becomes a constant refrain.

We chewed over the topic of motherly love a little last weekend at our mini-blogcamp. Bee and I took turns to unwittingly terrify Blanca about the trials of parenthood. I have pre-schooler boys, Bee has teenage girls. That’s quite a heady mix of ‘issues’ for someone yet to embark of parenthood to take on board. “Oh don’t worry!”, said Bee reassuringly. “Little children are very, very easy to love. You don’t get handed a teenager to deal with straight off, you get a tiny helpless baby.”

Her words have buzzed around my mind all week, “little children are very easy to love”. How right she is! They might not be very easy to manage, what with all the tantrums, tears, negotiations etc etc, but they are very easy to love….because they totally ADORE you and ADMIRE you. It’s a win:win situation….you become a total slave to them and their needs and, in return, they worship the ground you walk on. They get their basic needs met and a bucket of love to boot, and you get to walk round in a bubble of joy forever because these extraordinary little people worship the ground you walk on.

“You don’t get handed a teenager right off”, those words have also been niggling at me. Mostly in a ‘THANK GOD’ kind of way of course, but also because I’m beginning to see glimpses of what it might to be like to parent a teenager. Partly through my friendship with Bee, partly because I used to be a teenager myself. Shudder. Are teenage boys are better/easier than teenage girls? Please say yes…

It being Mothering Sunday I decided it was time to get a rare shot of me with the boys. Alas this means handing over the camera to MrSpud who clearly needs to read up a bit and join my Camera Club. At least it’s vaguely in focus, but the composition? Sigh….look at all that crap in the background, and that’ AFTER a major crop by me. It’s not the lovely shot I’d hoped for, but in the spirit of Getting in the Picture I am sharing it as a reminder to all your Snappy Bloggers that YOU need to get in front of the camera too sometimes.

Happy Mothering Sunday to us all – with thanks and love to all the mothers everywhere, breeding and nurturing the future of the world. No wonder we’re knackered…

Thank you…to Mysterious of Chelmsford

spudballoo — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:48:11 +0000

My first Art Exchange gift arrived in the mail today, all the way from Chelmsford USA (not Chelmsford about 30 miles up the road). But who send the gift? No note, no details…was it you? Do you know who it was?

Well thank you to whoever it was. The rest of today’s mail was a load of catalogues selling stuff I either don’t need or shouldn’t buy, a bill and a letter from the NHS about my medical details. Oh, and a new crochet hook.

No prizes for which was my favourite….

Cheers to Mysterious of Chelmsford x

Static

spudballoo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:56:34 +0000

Sometimes I look at my beautiful, funny, warm, loving children and I can’t believe they are mine.

Other times I want to give them away…

But this was one of the moments when I couldn’t believe my great fortune.

Three blessings! MrSpud …one….Bertie…two…Digby…three.

One…two…three.

Such a fortune of blessings…a veritable triumvirate right here, right now.

xxx

The One Where the Blog Campers meet in London

spudballoo — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:31:14 +0000

Despite the combined efforts of a vomiting bug, a queried broken leg and the combined forces of National Express rail and my inability to keep hold of vital travel documents for 5 minutes….I made it to London yesterday to meet with seasoned Blog Campers Bee and Blanca. Getting home again was a whole other story however which I will save for a different post on Family Spud’s Famous Travel Disasters.

I will just open brackets here to mention that there has been some kind of travel disaster associated with each of the 3 Blog Camps I’ve attended. The car park M25 did for me for Blog Camp 1.5 and I was 2 hours late arriving for lunch at Bee’s house. Blog Camp 2.0 was worse…8 hours late due to my inability to pack my bag in time for a stupid o’clock flight. Blog Camp 3.0 was better. I arrived on time, but left too early having misread my flight information. And then Blog Camp mini-meet brought all kinds of travel nonsense and ridiculous expense which I can’t even be bothered to talk about. Closes brackets.

I knew I was in for a joyous day when Blanca’s opening gambit was, ‘I’ve got a confession to make. But you can’t tell anyone!’. Secrets? Gossip? Confessions? And it was only 11.00am….bring…it…on…

Blanca unburdens herself of her secrets

We didn’t ‘achieve’ much. We went to Starbucks (natch), we battled with the tube to High Street Ken, walked in the sunshine in Hyde Park for hours, took a few photos, went to lunch, went for a Snog (more later), walked some more in the park and then it was time to go home. Not much activity really, instead we invested our energy in talking. Should you feel the world is missing a couple of million words today it’s because we used them all up yesterday. Sorry about that.

Books, films, families, husbands, sons, daughters, fiances, weddings, honeymoons, babies, blogging, bloggers, photography, food, the weather, cooking, secrets, secrets, secrets, holidays, work, sleep….nothing was off our agenda yesterday. We took a breather for a now traditional bloggers jump…oh look, all TWO of them off the ground at the same time. Result…

Things I learnt:

Despite having lived in London for 17 years, I don’t know the way from High Street Ken to Hyde Park without using a map. What’s that about? I spent huge periods of that 17 years living around there. Embarrassing.
I am so pleased the stress and hassle of planning a wedding is over for me. I’ve done it twice. That’s at least once too many. Poor Blanca! No wonder she was rather weary.
Bee should probably have an eye test….
There are so many people in London. I was quite overwhelmed with how many people were out and about, in the streets, in the park, in the restaurant. In a short year I’ve turned in to a country bumpkin with a touch of claustrophobia.
I am totally intolerant of other people’s small children kicking off in restaurants, despite being the mother of small children. Wrong and bad of me.
Blanca has a life plan. Beth and I do not. Interesting.
By common agreement, 26 is a bit too young to get married. At the time you feel all grown up, but the 20s are all about change.
We all miss being bored. Having huge, vast stretches of time with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no chores to do…just lying around reading books, or just being bored.

Blanca wanted to go for a Snog and who were we to deny her? In fact we built the day’s geographic agenda around having a Snog. I had a chocolate mini-snog with strawberries, the others had a vanilla with, erm, stuff. Blanca enjoyed her Snog, Beth and I binned ours at the first opportunity having decided that a frozen yogurt dessert that ‘lacks fat, shuns sugar and has hardly any calories’ tastes revolting. What can I say? Me and Bee are in the environs of 40 years old…..Blanca is, what, about 17 or something? She likes Snogs, we like The Archers. It’s a generational thing…

When I (eventually) got home I was tucking in a sleeping Bertie when he briefly woke and whispered, “Did you have a lovely time with your friends?”…”Yes” I whispered back, “I had a brilliant day, thank you.” I said…”That’s nice!”, he said. And it was. xx

Sssssshhhhhhh…..

spudballoo — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:45:38 +0000

Ssssssshhhhh….somebody, somewhere is getting this gift from me sometime soon….I can’t say who, or what it is….because I’m mysterious like that. Or, more to the point, the recipient might be reading and then it would be no surprise at all would it?

This is my offering for the Art Exchange project I blogged about a few days back. Make one gift, post it off, receive 36 in return…in theory. Even if I get one I’ll be thrilled.

I do feel a bit shy about my ‘offering’ because I’m such a beginner crafter. Also, the offering was immediately snitched by a Megaboy. Then the other Megaboy forced me to make one for him. I was going to make a third, non snitchable offering for the project but I ran out of supplies. So, in the dead of night, I snitched one back from the Megaboys and have posted it off. Let’s hope they don’t notice (slim chance).

To divert attention from my crap crafting I have gone all fancy with the wrapping.

Little bug clothespeg holding on a hand stamped, shaped paper apology for crap crafting:

Alternative view, hopeful that the lavender diverts attention away from crap stamping:

Crocheted flower embellishment. Oddly tied on with ribbon bow and stuck down with sellotape to stop it slipping all over the place. Pure class, that’s me…pure class…

‘Handmade with more love than skill’…that’s what it says on the card. Pretty much sums it up….I do feel sorry for the recipient! But it’s been a fun project.

Alas I can’t share the contents of the parcel because it would be too embarrassing will spoil the surprise. Sorry about that.

Holiday….celebrate…[to be sung]

spudballoo — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:31:35 +0000

Oh me love this! I saw one of these on Emma Bradshaw’s blog and totally and immediately hearted it. A wee catalogue card with your own list of joy/evil complete with handwritten scribblings. It’s a thing of beauty, right up there with the Grudge Book. Make one for yourself here.

Also, announces by stealth, the Spuds are going on holiday soon. To someplace hot (which ticks off another of that bloody 39 before I’m 40 list which is visibly aging me by the day). It involves a flight in an actual plane, two small boys, 27 suitcases, a lot of swearing, muttering and murderous glances, 45 bottles of wine (outgoing flight only) and MrSpud’s ’swimming’ which looks like he’s drowning. That poem, ‘Not waving but drowning’? It was written especially for him, even though he wasn’t born when it was published. Our 4 year old can swim better than him.

We don’t have a lot of luck with foreign holidays. Our first one was cancelled as MrSpud was loading the last of the bags in to the car, ready to leave for the airport, having got up at 4am. I noticed green pus pouring from Bertie’s ear (then 6 months old) and that was the end of our Florida jaunt. There are pitiful photos of me, cruelly snapped by our security cameras, sitting on the bottom of the stairs in the house, head in hands and crying. I wasn’t crying because I was missing out on a holiday, but because of all that wasted packing (which had taken weeks) and streeeeeeeesssssssssss.

Two months later we went to Kefalonia in Greece. I got pregnant by mistake. Bertie was 8 months old. The rest is history. We’ve not been abroad since.

So, with trepidation, we are attempting to leave the country in the hope of actually making it to our destination and returning without a surprise stowaway on board.

Watch this space.

BS

spudballoo — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:35:53 +0000

BS…BS…BS…BS??? Blue Skies….Big Smiles….British Springtime…Balmy Suffolk (or should that be Barmy Suffolk?)…Beach Strolls…no Bull Shit…

Spring has sprung, it’s official. Brilliant blue skies, sunshine, warm breezes, hanging out on the beach without wanting to cry after 5 minutes = the first signs of Spring and I’m giddy with it. I don’t think I’m alone…

Wanted…crafty people for joyous gifting experience

spudballoo — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:45:06 +0000

People Who Craft…I need you. I need various volunteers to make one item and send to a random stranger somewhere in the world and receive, in theory 36 hand crafted goodies back. Some of you can’t hide, I know you craft so I’ll be emailing you direct. Be afraid….be v..e..r..y afraid.

So people who sew, knit, crochet, stamp, art journal, paint, embroider, take wonderful photographs, scrap book, felt thing, make cards, mix wonderful oils or anything else…I need you. All you need to do is make one little thing and send it on. Fun fun fun.

Please email me if you’re up for it. But, people who are known to me and who make stuff…bad luck. I’m on to you.