La Chambre Bohemique

Today is day 3 of the free photography workshop I’m doing this week, hosted by Else Kramer. We got another set of inspiring paintings by the famous painters of the Golden Age. This one by Rembrandt really spoke to me. It’s called “An Old Woman Reading”. The prompt was to take a photo of someone looking at something, just like the woman in this painting is looking at her book.

I was initially thinking about doing a self portrait that would come close to this painting. Later I changed my plan and packed my backpack to take a self portrait in the beautiful Sorgvliet park. Time was not in my favour today. Actually, I have this problem the whole week. Either I am going way slower than usual or time’s going way faster. It takes a quick rational thought to say it’s me being awfully slow. Time has it’s own pace and I don’t think it has ever changed since earth came alive. Long story short, by the time I packed all my things it was 4:30 PM. It takes me an hour to get there and the park closes at 6 PM. That would leave me a short 30 minutes. I wouldn’t be able to make it in that time.

I set up a very simple kind of home studio, using a white door as a background and covering the floor with a dark piece of fabric. A stool would be my seat. I set up my tripod and camera, adjusted the settings so I was good to go. I was using a wireless remote control to fire the camera. While I had an apple in my hand to use for this shoot, Teddy got very interested in what I was doing. So I decided to pick him up and do some shots with him in my arms.

After choosing my most appropriate photo, I did some basic editing. And that’s when I got wild and lost track of time again. I thought it would be a fun idea to really make this into a picturesque scene. A while ago I purchased several digital kits at Mischief Circus. I used elements from different designers, resulting into this final piece. I’m quite happy the way it turned out!

While being so busy and focussed I completely forgot to make and have diner. It’s been quite a warm day in the Netherlands and as usual I don’t have a lot of apetite on such days. So my stomach wasn’t telling me it needed food either. Oh well, I guess one day of poor eating won’t be a problem. I’ll have some extra Greek yoghurt and fruit after I launched this blogpost. I’ll be a good girl tomorrow.