Work and not work
I finally broke the back of the bastard project I’ve been working on for the last month. In my department, we’re not supposed to be responsible for the accuracy of the information in this particular part of this particular project; the info is supposed to be correct when I get it. But once again, I have become the funnel through which all the additions, deletions and corrections have had to go before the content can be printed. This means, basically, that if it’s right, that’s because it’s supposed to be but if it’s wrong, it’s somehow my fault. At least, that’s how it feels.
But I’ve had a not-too-stressful week this week involving some photoshop work, which I haven’t done for a few months now. I’ve basically put together the cover photos for a couple of our brochures: taking someone else’s location shots and inserting some of my portraits to make it look as though the people are actually there. It’s easy enough to contour the subject and drop them in but I’ve been painstakingly looking at the lighting of the background and matching silhouettes and hairlights to light sources already in the shot, getting the colour temperature to match fore-and background and putting just the right amount of blur on the background to simulate a slightly wide camera aperture. It’s been fun. Would be nice to post results here or on flickr but there’s the whole IP and commercial-in-confidence thing. That, and I don’t really blog about where I work.
Today was back to a bit more gruntwork on a related project and boy, has the day dragged.
Having this big albatross off my back (or is it from around my neck – must read the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner) has been good. I’m setting aside some time to get a folio/CV in order to shop my wares around the place and another freelance job has just come up, so that’s all good.
And tomorrow I’ll drop off the first film from my Holga. I’m not expecting very good results. The reasons for this are:
- Holgas are notorious for light leaks and I didn’t tape it up beforehand. The result was that:
- The back of the bugger fell off two or three frames in
- I was using an old slide film my Dad had in the fridge. It had been there a while. The expiry date on it was 1989
These shots (if they work) I will be able to post. I have some more, b+w film (not quite as old, but still pretty old) I’ll be using next.
Oh, and my birthday was a cracker. Thanks to all who read this and know it was my b/day for whatever you may have done with/for me.
