So apparently MINI tweeted my banana MINI and the marching penguins picture and a couple of people retweeted it and made it a favourite. I'm really surprised! I believe that’s called “going a little bit viral!” And I hasten to add that’s a tiny, teeny “bit”, if I wanted to be the sensation of Twitter I needed to have my penguins twerking! #topical #chuffedtobits
When I showed my submission for the MINI Not Normal challenge around, I had quite a few people looking a little dubious and questioning my composition. As soon as someone pointed out that maybe, just possibly my photograph was a teeny, tiny bit suggestive; that the banana, the juxtaposition of the oranges could be construed just a tad phallic, I could kind of see what they meant. And then that's all I could see. I had already uploaded it to the MINI site so just crossed my fingers they wouldn't think it was a tad too PG to include in their collection.
I didn't hear anything from MINI but when I checked the NOT NORMAL site earlier, I was delighted that it had indeed made the cut. And very sensibly MINI had executed some discretion, judiciously cropping my image to remove most of the offending symbology, tighten the composition and given it a complementary yellow border.
I got such a buzz seeing my photograph there on the MINI website, it might not mean anything in particular but it makes me feel so inexplicably proud. And frankly a little relieved they edited something that may have raised a few more eyebrows. I think I passed the NOT NORMAL test, now there's an accolade!
Our thrice weekly Frui Photography Socials have been revamped, re-imagined and reformatted. Tonight is the first social 2.0 and we’re intrigued as to what expect. It happening just off Bond Street, I’m running late as usual and discover that on arrival, you get categorised according to your photography prowess. I had an ’advanced’ sticker thrust at me and, due to me having missed everyone else, I might need to come up with a topical LIFE magazine cover by myself. Luckily some of the other “advanced” photographers are still outside the pub, and desperately running out of time, I join them and we decide on 50 years since Martin Luther King made his famous speech for out team collaboration challenge.
We check out some old Life covers and decide we want a dark, plain background with a simple portrait of our model. We start off by trying a few poses outside a black wooden door with the LIFE logo, and then decide we wanted his face to be partially in shadow. We opt to use my camera as I can do a ’one spot colour’ on the red so the logo will be punchier and the rest of the picture will be more subdued. I left the fingers holding the masthead as I thought it was funnier. We each got an eight out of ten for our group photo.
Then there's the other point of the evening, socialising (aka drinking), before heading out a second time for the solo challenge. The theme for our single-handed effort is “feeling blue!” We all rush around, catching sight of blue lights outside a hotel, a few of us are drawn like moths. There's interesting blue ceramic door handles on one of the designer shots, the Tiffany blue banners are another possibility. I try a little circle of penguins staring down at their prone penguin friend, all on top of a blue car but the (lack of) light really didn't work. Across the road from Tiffany’s and Chanel I spot a very viable idea. Perhaps if I can get the first two letters of the blue Joseph signage and single out a lone mannequin, with the cold tones, the blank expression, I might be able to score an apt ’feeling blue’. Later I realise one of my favourite places is reflected in my image, Chanel, it seems even more appropriate!
We return again for scoring (and more socialising), I managed to get a nine for my blue Jo so my score is seventeen out of twenty. There’s a special prize if you can find another four people with the same camera as yours. I'm fairly confident there are no other Leicas, never mind my model. As generally the other photographers are asking if you have a Canon or Nikon I think I have assumed correctly. I don't think anyone managed to form a particulat camera gang, it's all about diversity it seems!
We discover that if there’s a tie for the top spots in your category, there's a 3 minute “shoot-to-the-death”. A handful of contenders in the intermediate and novice run outside and have three minutes for their best shot. Apparently there's no contest for the advanced photographers.
The winners is each category get a shiny gold envelope. Oooooh indeed! This gives us the chance to have a free image printed courtesy of Point 101. I was lucky to get the prize for the advanced category on the night, which was a lovely surprise! Afterwards, we are all encouraged to post our images from the night to the Frui Social Facebook Page.
I enjoyed the revamp, pleased there weren't obscure horn questions that either just rewarded the fastest google searchers and/or provoked arguments, and the punny team names are gone too. Personally I'm happy to focus (excuse the pun) just on photography and fun!
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