Yesterday we sent out the latest in a series of e-newsletters for Bobbledy Books. In the off chance that you did not get one, you can read it here (it’s really quite riveting stuff).
Each newsletter opens with a big tone-setting photo. For this one, which was celebrating the one-year anniversary of Bobbledy Books, we wanted to get a picture of ourselves in party hats, throwing confetti. Easy as pie, right?
In theory, yes. In reality, not so much.
Robbi set up the camera on a tripod.
The plan was, I would crouch at the far end of our work table with confetti in hand, Robbi would activate the timer and then run over and crouch next to me. At the appropriate moment, I would throw the confetti in the air, we would smile, and the perfect photo would result.
You know what they say about plans…
Here was our first attempt. Robbi’s opinion: I needed to look at the camera instead of looking up; my arm needed to come down.
I agreed. And so we took another.
Alas, we threw the confetti too soon. It has already landed by the time the picture was taken.
Again, too soon.
Better timing, but too much confetti in front of Robbi’s face.
Better, but Robbi looks like she’s on drugs.
Too much confetti in front of my face. Robbi looks like she’s about to burst into tears.
WAY too soon throwing the confetti.
Again, too soon. I look like I might knife someone.
A bit too soon with the confetti; my hand is in front of Robbi’s face.
Good timing on the confetti, but too much of it was thrown.
Frustration mounting, my timing is thrown hopelessly off-kilter. Too soon with the confetti.
Too soon.
WAY TOO SOON!
Well-timed confetti, just way too much of it.
In retrospect, I wonder if we should have just used this photo and called it a day. But ultimately, we figure it’s important for the people getting the email to know that it’s from us.
And so we tried again, and the last time proved to be the charm. We got the shot we wanted.
A little bit of cropping and photo filter magic yielded this:
Which turned out to be just the image we needed for the Bobbledy newsletter.
But at what cost?
At the end of the shoot, there was what I consider to be unreasonable amounts of clutter around my desk area.
Robbi’s take was along the lines of, “Suck it up, Yo. That’s the price of art.”
While I’ve been around long enough to know that the muse must occasionally be compensated, the price of art has a funny way of always being paid in my half of the studio.
That sequence is do funny. And, the “clutter” is reminiscent of August’s escapades.
BTW/ could one videotape, then create a still shot?
This made me laugh. Thank you. :)
NYC – videotaping is somehow much too complicated. First, it would require us to find our video camera. Second, it would probably require us to charge its batteries. Third, it would require us to remember how to get the video from it onto the computer (if I recall, it’s a particularly byzantine process). Fourth, and ultimately the most important, we thought this would take like 3 shots at most. By the time we got to shot 25, we were already too invested. The lesson we COULD learn from this is next time it would be easier to videotape. But instead, the lesson we learned is no more confetti-throwing pictures.
Which reminds me of the time I worked in the accounts payable department of a big corporation, and someone wrote a stickie on a memo referring to her co-worker as “honey”, and when the memo got passed up and up the ranks and no one removed the stickie and it ended up on the desk of some bigwig, the lesson learned was not “remove stickies referring to other people before passing memos on to superiors” or even “don’t refer to co-workers as honey on stickies” the lesson was “no more stickies.” So – no more confetti.
Also: August obviously come by it honestly.
Annie: you’re welcome. The photo of me looking like I’m on drugs is because I couldn’t stop laughing it was getting so ludicrous.
Robbie – Thanks for the videotape lesson. I say this very sincerely. I only “learned” about videotaping when I accidentally shot video when I thought I was taking a photo with my smartphone. Obviously, my cell is smarter than I.
And, I vote for more confetti! And, Out-takes! Obviously, I’m not a bigwig.
(Commitment and Tenacity (take 25..37!.) sounds like a true Eph- thank you again for creating the bucket list poster)