booktography

June 8, 2022 Joanna CorbetLeave a comment

I have taken a lot of photos of books over the last few years. Some of them bad, some of them good, and some that I’m actually really proud of.

I love books (surprise, surprise). And I love photography. So a combination of them is a match made in heaven for me. My booktography style has evolved over the years, mostly through trial and error and chance. I’m sure it will continue to shift and change in the years to come, but there are things I’m consistently drawn to when I take photos and I thought it might be interesting to share them.

My favourite thing to utilise is light and shadow. I don’t think you can beat natural light for pictures, which means I end up taking most of my photographs outside. And taking most of my photographs outside has resulted in me becoming (perhaps worryingly) obsessed with the shape shifting silhouettes of the plants (and other random things – lawnmowers, tables, a passing cat) by the paving slabs in my garden. It means I’m at the mercy of clouds and rain (living in England means I’m at their mercy a lot a lot), but I kind of like the ephemeral nature of it and maybe also the tiny adrenaline rush of getting a good shot against all the odds (what can I say, life is short and you’ve gotta live it on the edge).

Sometimes (so so many times) the weather just won’t play ball and I’m left to hunt down interesting backdrops that compliment the cover I’m shooting. This can be surprisingly hard and often means I have to edit the photos to within an inch of their lives to fix things like lighting issues and colour clashes – which isn’t my favourite thing to do, but the results can be unexpectedly good. And sometimes it’s actually really fun to mess around with filters, saturations, and contrasts. I can end up with ten different versions of the same photo, which then leaves me with the tricky, but also kinda fabulous, dilemma of picking which one to use.

I tend to take photos on both my phone and my camera. I like having copies on both to fall back on (I’m not sure what disaster I think will happen, but it makes me feel better so I’m sticking with it). Sometimes, though, the perfect shot (shadow, cat, pretty background) presents itself when I only have my phone to hand – the photos never turn out quite as clear, but I’d rather get a nice photo than lose the opportunity. You can edit an okay quality picture, you can’t edit one that doesn’t exist in the first place. (Note to self – remember this when it comes to writing.)

*the devil and the dark water on a deck chair in the sunshine*

Because I err on the “take lots and pray one of them is good” side of photo taking, I have lots of book pics that never get used. I photograph pretty much every book I read, but I don’t post about anywhere near all of them which makes for a lot of images that never see the light of day. And although that might not be super efficient of me, it’s kind of nice to have a visual scrapbook of my reading list to look back on. And hey, one day I might want to include the book in a list-style post so who’s the efficient one now? *tries to look like it was the plan all along*

Every photographer needs an assistant now and again, and I’m lucky to be able to count on my cats to come to the rescue should it look like I need help with a photo. They’re on hand to make sure I get the purrfect angles and lighting, although it’s pawhaps suspicious how often this help coincides with breakfast/dinner time.

And, sometimes, even the chickens like to get involved.

Here’s to many more book photos, and to trials, errors, and chance.

❤

Do you take photos for your blog? What are your favourite techniques? Has your style changed over the years?

Reads – The Revenant

January 15, 2019January 16, 2019 Joanna Corbet6 Comments

*sighs a long sigh and looks to the sky for help from the universe*

I’m really not sure where to start with The Revenant by Michael Punke.

For anyone who doesn’t know *scans the horizon with binoculars, waves at the stragglers in the distance*, The Revenant tells the story of Hugh Glass, an American frontiersman, and his quest for revenge on the men who robbed and abandoned him after he was attacked by a big, angry, and extremely bitey bear.

Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it?

Famously, it was adapted – adapted being the very, very key word – into a film, with Leonardo DiCaprio starring as Hugh Glass and a big, angry, extremely bitey CGI bear starring as the actual-bitey bear. (I watched it for the first time a few days ago on BBC iPlayer – the book is better, although it tragically lacks Leonardo DiCaprio.)

I’ll admit, I knew before I started reading that The Revenant wasn’t going to be a favourite – I just wanted to try it.

It was certainly an experience. At times, an ordeal. It took me over a month to finish it.

But there were positives.

The writing – it was excellent and evocative, even if it strayed into survival manual territory on occasion.
The characterisation (well, the characterisation of the men in the book) – I had no trouble picturing, liking, admiring, or loathing any of the main characters. They were a rich tapestry of lives-lived-so-far, motives, and emotions. But I wanted to throw the book out of the nearest window anytime a woman happened to appear in the story. Hysteric who has nothing to do with the plot? Check. Prostitute who has nothing to do with the plot? Check. OId, haggard lady who has nothing to do with the plot? Check. Wife who has nothing to do with the plot? Check. Dreamy, lovely, pure fiancé who’s been dead for years and has nothing to do with the plot? Check. I get that The Revenant is a raw egg drinkin’, 72oz steak eatin’, manly man adventure book, but c’mon. (Side note – if you find yourself getting annoyed and angry at the stereotypes in the last sentence, then please, please, please imagine how annoying a whole books worth of them would be.)
The things I learned – I genuinely think I could trap a rabbit after reading this book. I mean, I wouldn’t because I’m a vegetarian and think they’re adorable, but it’s nice to know I could if I needed to.

So, as you might have guessed, I’m not a super-fan. I do have a weird, grudging respect for it, but I’m looking forward to reading something a bit less rugged and grim.

I think I’m in need of some January book-sunshine.

therevenant — The Revenant by Michael Punke

Reads – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

September 13, 2018 Joanna CorbetLeave a comment

FYI for those who don’t like swearing: there are lots of ‘f’s and ‘u’s and ‘c’s and ‘k’s ahead.

So I have a confession: until last week, I had never ever read a self-help book. Not because I thought I was perfect (trust me when I say that is absolutely the opposite of what I think), but because I was (and am) wary of anything that claims it can change/fix your life. Snake meet oil, oil meet snake.

But 2018 has thrown quite the collection of existential crises at me, and I figured that maybe now was as good a time as any to see what the self-help genre had to offer.

I feel like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson was the best book with which to dip my literary toe into the murky self-help waters.

the subtle art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson book review.

Unsurprisingly, I chose this book because there really are some things in my life I hope one day to give much less of a fuck about so I can spend that giving-a-fuck-time on things that are actually beneficial for me to give a fuck about. (Woops, sorry about all the fucks. Aaand sorry again.)

These are some of my main impressions of the book:

I love the way it’s written. It’s blunt and eloquent. No matter how hard my mum tried to raise me otherwise, I absolutely love love love swearing. Granted, not pointless, inappropriately timed and/or set swearing. But when it’s used to emphasize meaning or if it’s used creatively or just portrays how people talk in everyday life, then I’m all for it. I don’t accept the argument that swearing always lowers the tone. This book inevitably has a lot of fucks in it, but it didn’t feel like too many. It just felt converstaional.
I don’t agree with everything in it. There were some conclusions the author drew that felt a little simplistic and some arguments that seemed to double back on themselves. But I enjoyed going over the ideas and questions that were raised by these points all the same.
I love the way it embraces failure. Maybe that’s just because I fail at a lot of things a lot of the time and it’s good to know I’m not alone in my general life failings. But I think it’s mostly because I’ve actually seen how failing “well” – in my own life and in my friends’ and families’ lives – has been the greatest teacher. Phew, sorry if that all sounds a bit new-agey.

Basically, the book is full of common sense and hope – as well as many linguistical fucks – and there are plenty of lessons to be learned from it. I will certainly be keeping my copy of it near to hand, ready and waiting to wave frantically at any other existential crises that threaten to rear their ugly heads.

*walks away from keyboard to wash mouth out with soap*

Memory Books

July 18, 2018 Joanna Corbet2 Comments

It’s funny how some things bring back very specific memories.

I get it, maybe weirdly, with shampoo. If I go back to using a shampoo after months/years (basically, whenever discounts and empty bottles align) the smell on the first couple of washes will always send a flood of memories rushing through my head from around the time I was using it before.

It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to time travel – which is kinda disappointing, but you have to work with what you’ve got I guess.

I got this whole memory-time-travel thing again the other day, except this time it was triggered by a book cover. I didn’t travel back in time very far – ahem, March – but in the middle of the longest heatwave of my lifetime it does feel a little like another world away.

And there were a couple of others that brought back some unusually clear memories.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton book cover. — The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton – the book that started it all. The cover took me straight back to the “beast from the East” at the beginning of March. Two days curled up in front of the woodburner, cocooned in giant woolly jumpers, the world outside made quiet with thick snow and freezing rain. The book was brilliant but claustrophobic by the end, just like the weather.

Old boots in ice and snow. The beast from the East, March 2018. — Cold toes in old boots.

The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry – my first driving lesson, May 2017. Sat in the garden, sunshine falling on my back, and waves of scaredy-cat butterflies blooming in my belly. Focussing on this book basically stopped me from ringing my instructor to call the whole me + driving thing off. And it’s a good thing I didn’t ring to cancel, because it turns out that driving is actually quite useful. Who even knew?

The Essex Serpent book cover — The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry.

The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien – 2003 Easter holidays, Spain. Aged 10, lounging on the tiles of a balcony on a blue-grey Mediterranean day, the sound of the sea lulling in the background. I was a bit unsure what was going on plot-wise but pretty darn sure I would at least finish the book before the final film came out at Christmas. I decided afterwards it was best to wait a few years before attempting The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. (Now I want to read them all over again.)

TROTKbook — The return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Most books bring back hazy memories from around the time I read them, but these ones just seemed to bring back strangely strong ones. Maybe ones that don’t trigger anything now will in the future? Brains are definitely weird and full of surprises.

Is it just me, or do you get memories popping out of your head like a bright lightbulb moment with some books too? I’d love to know what they are if you do.

❤