Sometimes the winter kicks you in the butt and you just can’t – or don’t want to – get outside to get your creative on. My creativity definitely diminishes in direct proportion to how much I am shivering, or if my fingers are too numb to press the shutter button. And since my creative starts with photography, and I’m not about to brave ice, snow, slush, sleet, psychotic Philadelphia drivers, and that special hell known as the Schuylkill Expressway in order to get to a decent photo location – or my screen print studio as a backup – I just have to get even more creative to come up with in-the-home photo activities.
The concept for this shot was introspection. My model was a one-inch-tall plastic action figure – the character was Too-Ticky from the Finnish/Swedish Moomin-Troll universe created by the late Tov Jansson. At the time of this shot, as I was pondering retirement from my tech career. I was trying to capture the feeling of my state of mind – in essence where I wanted to go and where I had been. Could I achieve my goal of re-inventing myself as a photographer and artist in my sixties? Could I somehow fine relevance is such a young and cutting-edge industry? This is what I wanted to express with the photo.
Black and white was definitely the way to go here – and I wanted it to be dark, moody and dramatic. It would be a bonus if I could throw in a bit of rim-lighting because I love it.
About this Photo: This photo required: 1. The edge of a jacuzzi tub. 2. A couple of black fleece throws. 3. A Too-Ticky Moomin Troll action figure. 4. A desk lamp. 5. A digital camera. 6. Five minutes from concept to cleanup. I love film, but when I am experimenting with lights, digital provides the feedback and immediacy that I need to work out the niggles in a shoot. Film is awesome, but the name of my site is ‘Film Sometimes,’ not ‘Film Always.’ I was able to adjust the dark framing around the borders, so as to give the subject the illusion of constraint and in the end, I was not unhappy with the shot.