Sunday, 24 April 2011

Supermarket Sweep!

Finally got my supermarket shot today.  I have wanted an empty car park to take a long shot with the supermarket in the background, but in the end the shot I think that I'll use is the closer one.
It was going to mean a Sunday morning shoot, before 9am, to avoid cars and the chance of being run over.  However, Easter Sunday saw them closed all day, meaning no early start (hurrah) and the chance to get the pictures.
As I already said, I am leaning towards the closer shot, but any thoughts/suggestions would be most welcome.

The last photo is to give you an idea of the size of these models, they are tiny, and very light.  The artist and his easel had to be super-glued down as they kept blowing over!

just messing around

The images below were taken just for fun, although I have pondered a mini-project along similar lines.  These pictures won't be going into the final product but I thought I'd share them anyway!


Tuesday, 19 April 2011

Book styles and printing options

As the finished product from this assignment has to be presented in book form I have spent some time looking at different companies offering the 'photo book' product.  Having had a bad experience with Blurb I am keen to try someone else, and as I had a very nice book made last year by Cewe (via Jessops) I included them in my research.  I also looked at the likes of Bob Books, Lulu, Pixum, and Photobox.
As the project is all about scale I want to produce a small book, the smaller the better, so that was my first criteria.  Obviously price has to be considered, the number of minimum pages (as I am planning on having no more than 15-20 final images), as well as total production and dispatch times.
For each company I noted each of the aforementioned criteria and the basic list I have compiled reads :

Jessops  smallest book is 14x13cm, soft cover photo booklet.  Minimum of 26 pages, from £6.  Smallest hardcover is 15x19cm, from 26 pages again, from £19.  Free delivery is available to your local store and the advised total time from the start of production to delivery is 5-7 working days.

Bob books smallest book is 19x15cm, hardback is £21.99 and paperback £14.99, minimum of 26 pages again.  Delivery is £4.50 and takes 7-10 working days.

Lulu's smallest book is a whopping 23x18cm, hardback costs £13.81, paperback £7.25 with 20 pages.  There is no easy answer for shipping cost or delivery times etc..

Pixum offers a 19x15cm option also, with hardback costing £17.99, paperback £15.99, and booklet £9.99.  Once more a minimum of 26 pages, with postage costing £3.99 and production taking approx. 5 working days.

Photobox's smallest book is just 9x7cm, with a soft cover at £5.99.  It does have a minimum of 31 pages though.  They also have a small softcover book at 18x14cm, again minimum of 26 pages and costing £14.99.  Delivery is £1.99 and production to delivery takes approx. 4-7 working days.

Of the options I have looked at I will be choosing Photobox as the finished product looks perfect for the project.  I will keep you posted on how it goes!

More little people, and an experiment

 Here are a couple of the little people pictures for my book, I am tackling the more tricky ones later this week.








In my wanderings I found a little miniature English-French dictionary, amusingly enough it is also called Lilliput dictionary.  I have played around with some of my little people and created the images below.  I am pondering putting them into the book also and would appreciate any feedback.




Wednesday, 13 April 2011

Just found this, thought I'd share

Great picture of Giovanni Soldini, an Italian sailor who has become famous for lone sailing.
I found this image while researching the photographer Nadav Kander.  It's not the best quality but I hope that you can see the yachts and palm trees on his shoulder....

Tuesday, 12 April 2011

From Big to Small

This weekend I finished shooting one half of the project.  This half is taking pictures of real people and places and making them look like models.  I have really enjoyed this idea and am really pleased with the results.
I'm not going to reveal the final choices, but here are some more pictures from this final shoot.