Inspiration strikes

The last month has been even more manic than usual, thanks to a massive workload and 2 small kittens (who have an amazing talent for creating yet more work). So there’s been no time to write blog posts although I managed to get more of the photography course done and created this inspiration board:

The course tutor claims it’s difficult to get all of the elements of an inspiration board lined up straight, but that was the easy bit for me. I have a mind that likes straight lines and orderly layouts. Taking the photo was the hard part because my house has tiny windows so the light inside is terrible even on a nice sunny day. And that board is huge (compared with the tiny stuff that I usually photograph) so it was on the floor, which meant it wasn’t very close to the window and that made the lighting problems even worse. I’m not going to tell you how many failed shots there were, that would be seriously embarrassing. 😦

Anyway, having lined everything up super-straight, I learned that I can chop the inspiration photo into sections to create lots of smaller photos like this:

This was a whole new concept! It had simply never occurred to me that I could make several pictures from one photograph. I love that idea!

I’ve also had lessons on adding props to product photographs, but I’m rubbish at that and need to practice. A lot. It’s much easier to have just the product in the photo, but that looks sooo dull. I like making things but I’m not very artistic, so styling a photo is seriously hard work for me. 😦

There have, however, been some fun lessons where I actually got to make stuff. Yay! So now I have 3 different light diffusers, 3 different reflectors and a light tunnel, all handmade by me. The diffusers and reflectors are fun to use and make a big difference to my photos. I still have no idea how to use the light tunnel, but I guess I’ll find that out soon enough.

And to finish off for today, these are the little rascals that have been getting in the way and preventing me from doing much work:

The one on the left is Spotty, and the one on the right is his sister, Tashy. Yep, she’s a kitler.