okay people, it's time to mull over my weekly 'pod' assignment. i know this wasn't your favorite entry last week, based on the lack of comments. it's long and boring, and who really wants to hear about my sorry creative process? but tough luck! do you think this is all just for you? i know, it's so exhilarating here at spackleshot that you may have been lulled into the idea that i'm only here to entertain you with brilliantly rendered stories and witty banter. but let's also remember that the 'shot' in this blog title refers to photography, not something very dirty, as my brother-in-law thought....and spackle--well it's my favorite word. me. me. me. me. not you. college roommate, you were right. i am selfish. deal with it. okay, now that daily therapy is over, on to my 'point of departure' journal.
this week's assignment: tennis ball.
23 september 2007
the tennis ball. i don't know. not feeling this. not having a raving mad genius moment that transforms the mundane object into art. but do i ever? figured i'd take the ball and my camera everywhere i go and see what situations arise. but that hasn't worked out at all since i'm actually expected to work and the term "down time" doesn't apply even to a lunch break.
spent some time with the ball at home though. we had a lot of fun. started out on the fire escape in the morning. right now my plants are in the strange state of dying while still ripening their last pieces of fruit. green cherry tomatoes and green sweet peppers. the tennis ball camouflaged in nicely: a big unripe piece of fruit. i like the humor of the shots, though it's a bit cheap.
more humorous was running into the old polish woman with whom i share a fire escape, wearing my sleep t shirt and shorts with no bra, photographing a tennis ball in my tomato plants. language barrier. she gets no explanation, just a good laugh.
next i moved inside and photographed my friend the ball sitting atop my bedbug-war-torn apartment's mountain of garbage bags that contain my long lost belongings. i know there is no reference point for most people in these compositions, but they mean everything to me. does it matter?
moving into the empty living room i pulled out my big blue exercise ball which dwarfed little wilson. i wanted to isolate 'son' and emphasize their size discrepancies, implying the tennis ball was son to the exercise ball, but it just didn't work. not macro? letters too close together?
instead i became entranced with the sun throwing blue light through the ball, chilling the hard wood floor. suddenly it's a more planetary relationship.
when it comes down to it though, i love the texture, the hair of the close up. one close up between my knees personifies the ball as a bald baby with one curly hair catching the light. nice texture in my shorts and correpsonding stray leg hairs. another personal, yet not universal favorite.
the shot below is technically better because the highlights aren't blown out, but i think the other one is more special. 
so i'm left unable to choose a shot between what i have, unsure if i need to reshoot. i like the abstract shots but are they anything other than color studies? seth says that after all, photography is a visual medium, yet we must go further than pretty...let me know which YOU, dear reader, like best, and why (if you can figure that out)!
