Back in 2017 when it was okay to travel to places, Claire and I visited the wonderful island of Sri Lanka. During our two-week travels we only got ripped off once (I think!).
We paid for a boat trip where we were told we may see crocodiles (the boat steerer-captain would be too grand a word-told us he’d only ever seen one). And then there were a number of opportunities to enhance our trip by forking out more money-one of those fish foot spas for example.
So by the time we went to see a guy rolling out cinnamon we were a bit jaded and wishing we’d researched the trip beforehand. But the guy was quite fascinating and I managed to get some interesting shots, including the one here of just his hands. His age and experience showed in every wrinkle and I was so happy with the picture that it now hangs in our hallway. (Click on thumbnails to enlarge).
As a side note he obviously tried to sell us some cinnamon but at a ridiculous price, even if you bought it from Harrods and were served by the Queen herself. We declined and his previous affable demeanour disappeared rather quickly. And so did we.
So a number of years later I invented a Projects Night at the club with the my project’s aim to produce similar pictures to the one mentioned above. I asked people to bring in props and grabbed a pile of stuff from around the house and lots of people did bring things in as well.
I was thinking I would set up by a window and have lovely rays of sunlight streaming through to light my series of hands. It was raining. So I had to set up a light with a trigger atop my camera. Now lighting is far from my forte (as are most aspects of photography) but I managed to get the lighting right quite quickly more by luck than judgement.
After that it was just a case of people putting their hands in, a quick snap or two and away we go. I wasn’t expecting anyone to bring a rabbit in but that was one of the volunteered props as well as puzzles, a guitar, flowers, knitting and a puzzle book amongst other things. Cheers guys!
The photos were then turned mono and tweaked a bit on ON1.
And yes I plan to do more!
