Penguin Design Award - The Shoot

I managed to book an afternoon in the photography lighting studio at short notice, which is incredibly rare, so I headed down with my posh camera and all the bits of my diorama. I had decided to shoot covers for four of Chandler's books, and not just The Big Sleep that is required for the Penguin Award brief. I have been reading an old Chandler omnibus, which includes The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window and The Lady in the Lake, which made an obvious set for me to work on.

Oh, and before I forget, here's a quick mock of the cover for The Big Sleep using one of the test photos I took yesterday:



I really like how this is shaping up and reckon it would look really great if I treat each of the four covers with a different colour "wash". Anyway, back to the business at hand. The actual shoot went very well with no technical problems whatsoever. Here are a couple of shots of my setup:



Once I got the title text in exactly the right position, I played around with various props for each of the four covers, with Weegee popping up in different positions in each. I didn't want him to be too intrusive but I like the idea that some people will spot him on all the covers and make the connection. Once all the bits were in place, I shot each cover a number of times, varying the focal length to see what would happen. I found that a 1/40s exposure at f13 gave enough depth-of-field to slightly blur the first word of the title, while delivering a lovely rich tone. Here are the four images I settled on for the covers:



I actually think I like The Lady in the Lake the most, which is unfortunate because the Penguin competition brief is for The Big Sleep. I really like how the text is slightly obscured by the scenery and how the figure looks like it could indeed be floating in a lake.