The Photography Challenge: Updates and Chat

[Lauren]

In order to keep the main thread neat and tidy, and to avoid inconveniencing those who join later, I'm creating a separate thread for updates. Every time you post a new picture, please give us the link or let us know where to find the new content.

You can also use this thread to chat about the photos.

[Lauren]

I just posted my first picture: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244518... for Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, from the story "Tomatoes and the Full Moon"

Together, the photo and the explanation contain spoiler for the story in this collection, so I'm going to use spoiler tags.
This is a 'novel' composed of interlinked short stories. (view spoiler)[There is a recurring character - a writer, who seems to go crazy as she gets older. In this story, the narrator encounters the writer at a hotel.
"She clasped a bundle wrapped in a silk scarf under her arm."
This woman keeps coming over to the main character to speak to him, and she is always carrying this bundle with her. At one point, he politely offers to hold it for her, but she refuses to let it go. Eventually he asks what it is, and she tells him that it's her manuscript - she's working on a novel and she suspects that people are trying to steal it. She says a woman already stole one of her earlier books. As a result, she takes it everywhere she goes.
At the end of the story, she disappears, but leaves the manuscript behind. The narrator opens it: Inside was a ream of blank paper." (hide spoiler)]

For those worried about how difficult this challenge could be, I think this shows that it can also be really easy :)

[Claudia]

Nice, congrats on being first!
Can you take out the "picture:" part in the link, otherwise it comes up with a blank page.

[Lauren]

Thanks :)
Whoops! Edited.

[Barbara]

Nice picture!

[Lauren]

Thanks! It was easy to set up; I just had to try a couple of locations and camera settings to get the colours right.

[Lu]

Good stuff Lauren!

I'm now just wondering, should we put a different point system on this. A scene in the book 1, dressing as a character 2 and re-creating the cover 2.5 or something?

For the level of hard work?

[Lauren]

There will undoubtedly be different levels of effort - my picture of a scarf and some paper is obviously way easier that what Varla was saying about underwater photographs of herself and a shark - but it's not related to what you decide to recreate. A cover could have just a cupcake on it, or it could have a girl in a ballgown running through a garden of roses. You could pick a scene where you're patting your dog, or a scene where you're running away from a killer wielding a knife in a forest.

Also, some things are easier for some people than for others. I was lucky I actually had a silk scarf, because none of my other scarves have that texture. Someone else might have to buy or borrow one. Same goes for other items, locations and characters. It's easy to get a picture of a beach if you live on the coast, or you might have to travel several hundred kilometres to do it. If you needed a picture of a middle-aged woman dressed as an oracle you could just ask your mom, but I'd have to ask one of Yaseen's colleagues and that would be really awkward.

So if we did have different points, it would have to be decided based on individual pictures, and we'd each have to provide an explanation for each of them, and come up with a system for allocating points.

[Lu]

You are right :) There are going to be easier ones and harder ones for all of us. So ignore my above statement!

I just finished , how would that work, I just take a pic of my face in a similar angle and makeup? And then just edit the background etc?

[Riana]

I don't know if you have photoshop, but I think it will be fairly easy to replace your face with the woman's face and then change your eye colour to a bright green. Well that would have been my first try. And the makeup looks easy enough as well I think

[Lu]

My eyes are green so I can just try and make them darker if need to :)

[Lauren]

I'm fine with all the above suggestions. You could, as Riana said, take the cover and replace the woman's face with your own, but I don't think it's necessary. The background and that streak of gold on her forehead are photoshopped in anyway, and don't depict solid objects, so if you just use a photo of yourself to mimic the model, that's fine :)

[Lu]

Sweet :)

[Barbara]

Ok, I went for the easy option as you, Lauren, called it in the questions topic. I read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and I took a photo when I was in London a couple of years ago that is just perfect. At least I think it is. So here it is: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244518...

[Lauren]

Great photo! I doubt many of us will be able to use photos with period costumes (which is one of the reasons I'm allowing old photos).

[Barbara]

Thanks! I was lucky enough to visit the Tower where they enacted some historical events. Here the actors are just having fun with each other and not acting but the costumes are just about right for Shakespeare and it does fit in perfectly with scenes in the play.

[Lu]

Awesome stuff!

[Varla Fiona]

Yeah, wonderful photo.

[Barbara]

Thanks guys!

[Lauren]

Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...
It's a picture of the main character Malcolm, after hitting a badger while driving home one evening. He is shocked when the dying badger starts talking to him. The creature is actually a frost giant in disguise, and has the power to control the world. Because Malcolm has killed him, prophecy dictates that he now has to take over as a god. Malcolm is skeptical and reluctant. The badger was expecting someone taller.

Malcolm is not well described in the book; we just know that he's dork and not particularly tall. He is picture on one of the covers, and I got my boyfriend to dress up in similar clothes (he's not tall either). Sadly we did not have a badger and the cat refused to play the part, so you can just assume it's lying outside of the frame...

[Barbara]

I must say Yaseen is being a good sport. Maia not so much. :)

It was so funny. I caught myself yesterday when I was walking to the bus looking at everything I saw and asking myself if it was something I should take a picture of, because maybe I could use it for one of the books I was going to read.

[Lauren]

Lol, all I had to do was make him some green tea. He doesn't know it yet but he's going to have to be a drug addict going cold turkey on the couch soon.

I'm the opposite - as I read I keep stopping to think whether or not I can set up a photograph of a particular scene (in which case I should highlight that passage). And I keep looking out for character descriptions to highlight.

[Lu]

ROFL poor Yaseen! I hope Mark plays along as well :D

[Barbara]

Ok I have another one. The book is The Queen of Subtleties by Suzannah Dunn: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

[Rochelle]

Hey Guys, I have uploaded my first photograph!
The book was: On the Island
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

[Barbara]

Rochelle wrote: "Hey Guys, I have uploaded my first photograph!
The book was: On the Island
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519..."

Who's that in the photograph? Is that you?

[Rochelle]

Barbara wrote: "Rochelle wrote: "Hey Guys, I have uploaded my first photograph!
The book was: On the Island
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519..."

Who's that in the photograph? Is that you?"

Yes, it is. The last time we were at the coast.

[Barbara]

Cool. So you had a photograph waiting to be used. Just like I did with my first one. I love when that happens.

[Rochelle]

Me too!:-) I was playing around with ideas, but they didn't work out so well, so I decided to just take a chance and check my PC for photo's that could work (Didn't think that I would find anything though), was so happy when I saw this picture, it was basically perfect, but there was this lifegaurd flag next to me in the picture, that's why I tried to use the photo in a way that I could sort of "crop out" the flag! :-)

[Barbara]

Well you did good! I loved your picture.

[Rochelle]

Thank you very much! :-)

[Lu]

Love your pic Rochelle!

I'll take pics soon guys, just so busy :(

[Barbara]

Lu (Sugar & Snark) wrote: "Love your pic Rochelle!"

You don't like mine??? :(

[Lu]

Ooooh only see it now! I just scrolled down and skimmed :(

I like your sword!

[Barbara]

Lol
Thanks!

[Rochelle]

Lu (Sugar & Snark) wrote: "Love your pic Rochelle!

I'll take pics soon guys, just so busy :("

THANKS! :-)

[Lauren]

Great photo Rochelle! I love your graphic design as well.

[Lauren]

I posted a picture for The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

Lucky I had this picture, a random shot I took in a bar with velvet chairs, old rotary phones, writing desks and old typewriters.

[Barbara]

Nice photo, Lauren.

I posted a couple myself:

http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519... for Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519... for The Lady of the Rivers
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519... for Let the Right One In
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519... for Horns
http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519... for Key Of Knowledge

[Lauren]

You've been busy! Well done :) Have updated your score.

[Barbara]

Thanks! And I even forgot to take one other photo and update it, but I will take that photo next time. :)

I just got lucky with a couple of books. Other books I have read are much harder, but I will figure something out for them too.

[Lu]

Wow well done!!!

I need to get myself in gear and take pics :)

[Lauren]

Here's my pic for Doughnut by Tom Holt: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...
The main character enters alternate realities. To return to the normal world, he must find a doughnut and look through the hole in the centre.

[Lu]

Love it!

[Lauren]

Thanks! A nice easy one, but only because I'm in Cape Town! I wouldn't have been able to get round doughnuts in Addis. Now I just need to take a photo of The Purple Turtle bar in Long Street for Inkarna.

[Lu]

Looking forward to that pic :)

[Lauren]

My picture for Inkarna by Nerine Dorman: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

The picture is of the Purple Turtle bar in Long Street. The main character, Ash, works at that bar in the novel, although it has a different name. I suspected that that bar was based on Purple Turtle, and checked with the author to be sure. Drove past it yesterday to take a quick picture. Luckily the robots were red at the right time for me to take a couple of shots :)

[Lu]

It looks awesome!

[Barbara]

Great pictures, Lauren.
I have another one myself: http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

[Lauren]

My photo for The Cutting Room by Mary Watson http://pinterest.com/pin/141441244519...

In a key scene, the protagonist is woken from her sleep by a knife attack. I decided not to risk ruining any of my clothes or linen with fake blood, so I decided to photograph the moment just before.
One slightly creepy thing about taking the photo is that (view spoiler)[it draws a couple of parallels with the book. Like the protagonist, I am a coloured woman in a relationship with a Muslim man. At the very end of the novel, it's revealed that the protagonist's husband is the intruder who cut her. And yes, that's my boyfriend Yaseen holding the knife... (hide spoiler)]