I am a man of many skills, but photography is certainly not one of them. I knew this full when when I accepted Sam's challenge to produce some book-themed photographs based on a list of 12 prompts she had given me. Sam herself is a wonderful photographer (who's photography blog you can check out here) and I have no doubt that her side of this challenge will be a million times more professional and pretty looking, since she is no amateur when it comes to wielding a camera.
Despite my dire skills, I had a lot of fun taking these photographs. It was a really interesting experience trying to think of more creative ways I could approach some of the prompts, taking a couple of silly photos, but also some more serious ones too. This collaboration has inspired me to think more specifically when it comes to creating photos for things like book reviews or recommendations posts. So, without further ado, here are the photos I came up with!
Prompt One: A Flower
For those of you who aren't familiar, there is a lot of history surrounding daffodils and Cornwall, where I live. During the annual St Pirran's Day (patron saint of Cornwall, March 5th) all across Cornwall Daffodils are plastered across every available surface, in the streets, in the parks. Yellow everywhere. My unviersity's writing room is no different. I pinched a daffodil from a pitcher of water and took a few moments to pose it in an old book of Cornish Piskie stories, and I'm rather pleased with the results.
Prompt Two: An Item of Clothing
I loved how the colours of my scarf complimented the colours of this book - a fantastic read, by the way!
Prompt Three: A Pillow
Again, I just loved the colour palette here. It's very twee-cottage-grandpa; classic Charlie aesthetic.
Prompt Four: A Pair of Shoes
Speaking of classic Charlie aesthetic, these are my blue Doc Martens, which I am pretty much inseparable from. The book here is an excellent mini-essay on the importance of children's book, and hey, I think the red contrasts with the blue nicely!
Prompt Five: A Candle
My lovely friend lent me both her candle, and then a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower so I could take this photograph. Perks is one of my favourite, most important books - some might say the 'light' of my life... Hah.
Prompt Six: Three Different Patterns
Some complimentary patterns here! The writing room at my university is named after Virgina Woolf's To The Lighthouse, where I took a majority of these photos, so I wanted a nice way to incorporate that into this prompt!
Prompt Seven: A Notebook
Can you tell that blue is my favourite colour? Here is my favourite planner, with my favourite pen, all the same shade of Ravenclaw blue.
Prompt Eight: A Grape
Right, okay, Sam, what on EARTH did you expect me to do with the prompt 'grape'? This is a bizarre response to a bizarre prompt. Plus, we're currently having an epidemic of tiny babies in Falmouth... But that's another story.
Prompt Nine: A Sentimental Book
The Rest of Us Just Live Here, a sentimental read as it's one of the first that I shared with my friend Sinead, and never fails to remind me of summer.
Prompt Ten: A Book With More Than Five Colours
Great cover, if slightly misleading the contents of the book... Regardless, it fits!
Prompt Eleven: A Bookmark
Shameless snapshot of my friend's book! I'm starting to realise I have a bit of a taste for the primary colours in these photographs, but nevertheless, I think the circles look pretty cool here too.
Prompt Twelve: A Spoon.
"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon!" Get it? Because it's spoons? And Order of the Pheonix? I... Yeah. Lets leave it here.
OMG I LOVE IT! You may be an amateur, but I'm actually really impressed! The spoons is really clever and your use of complimentary colours and shapes is actually really good! The circles from 11 work particularly well :)
I think my favourite photo is the flower!
Also well done with the grape! It certainly is a strange response to a strange prompt. I wanted some funny results and I got them!