Shelfie

There are many reasons I’m not into selfies, pictures of myself taken with a cell phone.  The first reason is that I’d rather be behind the camera.  And as a photographer, I tend to prefer better quality portraits in good light.

On the other hand, something totally up my alley is a shelfie. Reading is one of my favourite pastime. In my many years as an academic, I amassed a rather large collection of books. But the book buying didn’t stop when I got into photography and business. My interests keep expanding and you can get an idea of the range of books I have on my shelves from the above photo.

The shelfie picture is also a good illustration (pun intended!) of the kind of imagery the digital technology and Photoshop allow one to create.  This shelfie photomontage is part of a personal project of mine involving photo composites. Apart from the creation of interesting surreal images, the technique of compositing has some very practical applications. For example, a reflector (or white card) may be needed to get the light just right on the subject, but the placement of the reflector is such that it appears in the shot. A combination of photos with and without the reflector allows one to solve the problem.

I believe that the mastery of Photoshop is a requirement in this digital age, and I plan to explore other kinds of composite ideas to hone my Photoshop skills, because I just love to learn new things. So look for other Photoshop composite experiments like the shelfie picture above in the coming weeks and months.

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