Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts

Monday, 17 September 2012

Advice Part 69- Photos you SHOULDN'T take

Confession- as a lover of the interesting and unusual, I very much enjoy stumbling unexpectedly on strange things which take my fancy. In fact, the only thing I like more than discovering something delightfully whimsical is taking pictures of the said object on my phone, and sending such snaps to an unfortunate selection of friends.


Who I'm sure promptly delete them. But such is life.

My advice for young players is that a) liking weird things, and
b) taking photos of such objects
is all well and good, but sometimes, it really pays to exercise a bit of restraint.....

How do I know this? Read on.....

Last Thursday, I was invited to take part in a business meeting with some of my colleagues. The organiser had booked the meeting room upstairs, which is right next to the "big boss's" office.


I'd never been up there before, and when we had a break, I wandered into the "big boss's" kitchen to get a cup of tea. 

No problem.

But as I went to get some milk, I noticed that the "big boss" had one of those cool magnetic poetry sets. For those who don't know, such sets consist of about 250 random words (e.g. "he", "she", "sunshine", "cats"), which the creative can use to construct sentences.


There were the obligatory boring constructions e.g. "the book is red", but RIGHT IN THE CENTRE of the "big boss's" fridge, someone had written:

"IS IT TIME FOR COFFEE OR WILL I MAKE DO WITH SEX?"


I thought this was hilarious, but decided to add my own personal improvement, and put the word "HOT" between "WITH" and "SEX."

Puerile, I know.

This was too good an opportunity to miss, so I hurried back to the office, grabbed my phone, and proceeded to return to the kitchen to photograph my handiwork.



All was going well when the "big boss" walked in JUST AS I WAS PHOTOGRAPHING HER FRIDGE!
  • Big Boss: Hello, there.
  • Me (blushing bright red): Err, hello. 
  • Big Boss (wearing quizzical expression): What exactly are you doing? 
  • Me (sure I'm about to lose my job): Umm, I'm photographing your fridge.
  • Big Boss: It's a very nice fridge, but may I ask why? 
  • Me (wishing the earth would swallow me up): Because someone wrote a funny sentence on there.
  • Big Boss (curious): Oh, really? Which one?
  • Me (pointing with trembling hand): This one. About the "hot sex".
  • Big Boss (reading the offending article): Oh, that's good. That might have been me. 
  • Me (deadly silence)......
  • Big Boss: You look a bit shocked. Why? 
  • Me: Well, I was just a bit surprised. I thought this was a "G-rated" fridge.
  • Big Boss (laughing): Oh no! Most definitely not. We like to have some fun up here.

And with a wink, she walked off.

Oh dear.

All I can say is, the next time I decide to do a bit of photography, I probably should exercise a bit more caution. But I know EXACTLY what I want for my birthday now (hint: magnetic poetry set!)

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Advice Part 26- Avoiding photos when you're NOT photogenic

One thing I know only too well is that there are some people who always look AMAZING in photographs.

Even if you catch them from an angle which would be totally unflattering for any mere mortal, they manage to look great. The "camera loves them", so to speak.


I am NOT one of these people. 

Rather, if there was a contest for the least photogenic person on earth, the only serious contenders for the title would be me and my mother (sorry, Mum!).

No matter how hard I try (and trust me, I'm doing my best), in almost every photo I have:
  • My eyes closed
  • My mouth pulled into a horrible snarly grimace
  • My hair flying crazily all over the place.
My advice for young players is that if you, too, are TOTALLY unphotogenic, it is best to develop some (not too) subtle techniques for avoiding the camera.

Here's a few examples from a wedding I attended recently. As we all know, weddings are one event where almost everyone is running around with their photography equipment. This provides a MAJOR challenge for the camera shy......But, as these photos "of me" show, it is possible to (almost) avoid having your picture taken! This can be accomplished by:

  1.  Hiding on the edge of the photo (that's me in the pink spotty skirt....)
 2. Concealing yourself behind a tall gentleman in a purple shirt


3. Making good use of an umbrella (that's me closest to the camera).

However, if all this fails, and you simply CANNOT avoid having your photo taken, there is always the "back turning" option, as I am illustrating here at another party:


And no, I am NOT ready for my close up, Mr DeMille.....