Change of Mood (Board)

Had a small shuffle-round of the images on the inspiration board this evening (the blue pinboard that hangs above my desk as a little reminder of my fads of the week/month/year). Some are transient, some are more permanent!

Current prompts:

1. Business card for Woodtype and Font Shop originally in Brighton where I bought my printers' tray and two woodcut print letters
2. Tag from Girl from Blue City bourbon biscuit necklace (birthday present!)
3. Business card for my website, b seen photography, to remind me to update it now and then...
4. Postcard from amazing stationery shop in Brighton's Sydney Street, Pen to Paper

5. Mini chalkboard-clipboard, true purpose as yet unknown but here reminding me which eras I seem to be obsessed with at the moment... 20s and 60s...

6. Photo-postcard of actress Mona Maris by E. O. Hoppé

via here

7. Mick Jagger by Colin Jones, courtesy of the Guardian and Observer, also on display at the National Portrait Gallery

via here

 8. Photo-postcard of Rebecca West also by Hoppé

via here

9. Postcard of Automat, Edward Hopper, originally featured here

10. Postcard of Le Jugement de Paris, George Barbier, also previously featured here

11. Photo-postcard of The Rolling Stones, by David Bailey

via here

 12.  Photo-postcard of Marianne Faithfull, by Gered Mankowitz

via here

 

13. "A terrier poses for the camera", © Ros Fraser Collection/Mary Evans

via here

14. Photo-postcard of Lily Cole, "Like a painting", by Miles Aldridge

via here

Have decided that the sublime Louise Brooks photo deserves a frame rather than a ladybird pin adhesion...

The Purpose of Amateur Eye

I am trying to become a photographer. A better one, anyhow. I have an archive of photographs from childhood and adolescence and I see them as a back-up memory.

I'm currently working with a compact Olympus Camedia that used to belong to my great-uncle. Its facilities are quite limited - 2 megapixels, 5x digital zoom - but it's a start. I'm currently shopping around for a digital SLR but am not sure exactly what I'm looking for.

At the moment portraits are my focus but I also like to experiment with coloured filters (at great expense - ironed-out sweet wrappers seem to blur but they'll do until I can afford a spectrum!)

Here are a few of my shots. Many of them could really benefit from

a) a steady hand
b) different perspectives or depths of field
c) cropping

but this is a learning curve!