Nobody’s suggested to me that product photography and journalism are a strange combination. (Even though photojournalism might be a more obvious career sidestep.)
Nor has anyone asked if I have a photography degree. In fact, all the photographers I know started as amateurs while in an unrelated career; business, the army, engineering, teaching, etc.
Where do I stand as a photographer working for free?
Imagine you’re a creative business. Along comes a brand or influencer requesting freebies in exhange for the promise of ‘exposure’. This is the scenario that played out recently between a former soap actress, her party planners, and a Yorkshire bakery.
The baker declined. All hell broke loose online.
I’ve put a lot of thought into this. In the above case, my response might have been: “Ma’am, the only exposure I know is the amount of light that hits the sensor.”
“Product photographer? You should go down to the woods and take photographs of the bluebells – stuff that people actually want to see.”
“My granddaughter takes pictures of her Starbucks like that.”
The message was clear – when people think professional photographer, they think landscapes. Also weddings, or portraits. So why would anyone want to be a product photographer on the Isle of Wight, when we have such beautiful scenery – let alone hire one?
Amazon Prime’s new ‘Lord of the Rings’ has failed to become a Stranger Things-style pop cultural phenomenon for the streaming platform.
Promising Young Woman won a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. Its writer-director is the London-born, Oxford-educated actress Emerald Fennell (Camilla from The Crown), with fellow Brit Carey Mulligan in the title role.
It’s the infamous tween twerking movie that sparked visceral online hatred and a rash of Netflix cancellations.
A man spends a romantic evening with a beautiful woman, and thinks: “I’ll grab my binoculars and go into protective mode.” She thinks he’s Cape Fear and gets a restraining order.
Or does she?!
Everyone loves a famous fictional bloodline. When author Nancy Springer used the beloved Sherlock Holmes canon as a springboard for her young adult novel series, the revered detective gained a baby sister.
It’s hard to blog about Netflix shows like Stranger Things or The Crown. They’re period pieces, with sky-high production values. They’re well-acted and entertaining. What else is there to say about soothing nostalgia?
Single mum Laura is recently divorced. Faced with the reality of London house-hunting, she’s renting a granny flat as a stop gap. Her new, temporary digs happen to be in The Close, an exclusive development of McMansions.
Following the murder of her 13-year-old sister Mattie, Sadie Hunter, 19, vanishes from their Colorado trailer park. Although radio star West McCray questions whether there’s a story in yet another runaway, he’s persuaded to follow the missing girl’s trail by her surrogate grandmother, May Beth.
Whaddya mean it’s Wednesday?!
I rarely give up on a book, so it’s been a challenge to come up with a post for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday. I’ve included books I ducked out of before committing, plus those I should have ditched! Just in case you don’t already know, TTT was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June 2010, then moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018.
The stiff upper lip is as much a part of the British stereotype as our tendency to drink tea and talk about the weather. With the 87-year-old Lady Glenconner’s ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude, her hit memoir is not such a bad book pick during a pandemic.
As it’s a new year, Slow to the Party would like to swiftly wish everyone a Happy 2020!
The weather is depressing, but I’ve bravely left the safety of my bed to catch up with the sorta-latest flicks! Here are my smallish reviews. I’m not calling ’em mini reviews anymore.
In Catherine the Great – HBO and Sky’s new four-parter – the cast talk like they’re in The Crown (Jason Clarke does his own thing – more on him later). Luckily the big fur hats let you know you’re in RUSSIA.
At Halloween, a lot of bloggers do horror-themed posts. I’ve always avoided the genre, but something has changed lately, after I binge-watched three seasons of American Horror Story without flinching!
Now that I’m living my best, devil-may-care life, here are the scariest books and films I’ve…encountered recently.
I’ve hated most movies lately. Where I used to watch any old thing, I withstood two minutes of the latest Guardians of the Galaxy before switching off. I decided to ease myself back into film-watching with some of the latest, more highly-acclaimed movies – after all, Oscars are a sure indicator of quality, right?!
The CW’s Mary Queen of Scots soap opera Reign took an axe to historical accuracy. Yet beneath the fashion and fantasy, the vital beats were there; Adelaide Kane’s Mary married the Dauphin of France, before returning to a turbulent Scotland as a teen widow.
It’s Top Ten Tuesday again – it happens every week! Today, it’s Childhood Favourites. Here are mine:
You’re in so much pain you pass out. Before you collapse, you’re pondering your unearned cultural privilege and reductive iteration of gender theory. Meet Frances: communist, poet, and narrator of Sally Rooney’s coming-of-age debut set in post-crash Dublin.
