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Yesterday, I spent an hour and a half making this photo:

I’m not usually one to document my process, since I don’t have a process, but I found the whole experience to be generally entertaining so I figured I should write it down so I could remember it, and if I was going to write it down, I might as well write it here, because it’s not like I have anything else to write about. If nothing else, it should be a lesson in how I am nuts.

So, over in The Land of Flickr I participate in a group called Utata, which always has several different projects going on at once. It’s nice, because if I’m ever looking for an idea, there’s always something to do. Anyway, one of the projects is called Iron Photographer, which requires photos to include certain elements. This time around, the elements are:

1. Brick
2. Something with a handle
3. Black & White

When I started, I really had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted a certain wall in my house to be the backdrop. Problematically, there was stuff in the way, so I needed to move it. The stuff-moving scared my dog and she hid under my bed until I told her that the world was not going to end and she could come out. Once the wall was clear, I stood there looking at it for a minute, then I moved a chair in front of it. Then I thought about things with handles and retrieved an old dusty suitcase. I dusted it. Then I set it next to the chair. The suitcase was vintage in feel, and since the photo was going to be black & white, I thought maybe I would go for a vintage angle, so I got a satin lined black wool coat out of the closet. The coat is vintage, see? See how I come up with ideas? See how the coat isn’t in the photo? Yeah.

Then I got some shoes. I was wearing the shoes and standing on the chair, facing the camera, with the suitcase right where it is, and I shot a few but I didn’t like them, and I also realized I had forgotten the brick. Fortunately, I am the type of person who just happens to have a brick lying around the house, so I retrieved my brick and set it on the floor. I looked at things and they didn’t make any sense, so I put the shoes on top of the brick. Things still didn’t make any sense, but I had shoes on a brick so, whatever, I figured I’d just go with it. I got back up on the chair and stood facing the camera. Then I thought “You know, I should be reaching for the suitcase” so I reached down and pulled a muscle in my shoulder. Personal injury cracks me up, so I stood up there on the chair, laughing at myself. I realized that if I didn’t want to keep hurting my shoulder, I was going to need to get a different chair, one that was lower to the ground. So I moved the chair I had out of the way and got the new chair and placed it against the wall. I took a test shot. It came out like this:

I didn’t like it, but I thought it was close, so I arbitrarily zoomed in a little bit and went in for the kill. Before I returned to the chair, I knew I wanted the suitcase handle to be standing up, which turned into a five-minute exercise in frustration and threatening an inanimate object. But I got it, finally, and got back up on the chair. I stood on tiptoe (nearly fell off the chair) and reached down for the suitcase. I said to myself “That was it,” and I got down, took the memory card out of the camera, resized the photo in Photoshop (I didn’t make any other adjustments, which is rare, because I almost always tweak something, mainly because I can), uploaded it to Flickr, and that is that.

Well, I had to move the furniture back. I wish I had an assistant.

There. Wasn’t that a GREAT story?

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