Sunday, June 21, 2009

Skullking Around

Of all the interesting requests I've had, this one was the strangest, and most amusing. Take one plastic skull (make believe it's real) for an outing to the beach and get a cover shot for the novel.

Problems:

1. Temperature. Two days after the big snow, surrounding hills still white, about 4 degrees out of the wind.

2. The kind people who lent me the skull didn't want it immersed in sand or water. They were quite emphatic about that.

3. The people requesting the photo wanted it as realistic as possible with the skull poking out of the sand or water.

4. Did I mention Yorick wasn't supposed to get sandy or wet?

5. Did I mention the temperature.

Let's face it, it was never going to work, and you can guess by the fact I'm blogging these pics Yorick is not going to be making a guest appearance on my cover. But I have to say, despite getting very strange looks from people, barked at by dogs and bl**dy cold lying on the sand, it was really quite fun!

I think the pics are kind of amusing and endearing in a strange kind of a way.

Not the sort of thing you do every day.

So in no particular order...

I was strolling at the beach one day...




Fido the Staffy told me quite loudly that he wasn't sure about all this. His owner gave me a veeeeery wide berth.




Yorick acquires new hair do...



Liked the reflections in this one, got a bit caught up in the moment...




Please note, both Yorick and photographer are wet now. Bugger.



But Yorick is still smiling...
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5 comments:

DaveB said...

Cover art is fascinating. I've taken or offered two suggestions for photos for Paul's books, Cemetery Lake and his new one (out 2010) Blood Men. But he didn't like either of them ... that was fine as I really enjoyed the thrill of picture taking.

I remember seeing some chick lit writer's websites and she had one book with 27 different covers for all the areas it was published in ... and the different names even in other English speaking countries.

Some of those pics will look great, perhaps with a couple of Photoshop filters ... a drizzle of blood ... :)

Mary McCallum said...

looks like you had fun Vanda - some cool shots there - although that skull looks too damned white

Tania Roxborogh said...

omg Vanda
What is going on?
I'm scared.
Should I still consider you a friend?

Kiwicraig said...

I quite like the first one, if you cropped the left hand side to make it more portrait, it's actually quite a striking and well-balanced image...

Vanda Symon said...

It would all have been so much better with a real skull, but the Anatomy folk had a few ethical issues with that. Me, I didn't see the problem, and the former owner of a real skull may have enjoyed the outing...