Sometimes in this job, your heart sinks as you walk into a room, and you have to do a little lateral thinking to come away with something the picture editor might actually use…

A lot of my UK editorial work is education related, including regular stories for the Times Educational Supplement (TES) – not now in fact owned by the Times, or even a part of the Murdoch empire, but still the main education newspaper.

Three or four years ago I was commissioned to photograph some students at Sheffield College for the FE (Further Education) section of the paper, and shoot their new project, which was to redesign ten bottles (all, happily, green), to a brief from a ‘client’.

I arrived and was ushered into a rather unprepossessing classroom, with a round table, and ten 19 year olds looking up at me, each clutching their shampoo/beer/sauce bottle under a delightful fluorescent glow.

Well, it took a bit of work, and about 45 minutes, but this is where I ended up:

Ten Green Bottles :: TES FE section copyright Richard Hanson

I’ve got two Lumedyne heads firing into the white wall (very handy…), with the bottles suspended from a backdrop paper roll on supports, about 1.5 m out from the wall, allowing the light enough space to spread relatively evenly across the background, but still allow a touch of fill to fall on the student’s face.

Lots of things to watch out for technically – too much light would give a ‘bloom’ effect around all the objects, too little and the wall would just have ‘hot spots’ visible, not spread evenly. Enough of the bottles had to be clearly green for the idea to work, so there was some thought in the placing and heights of the different bottles. I’d sort of worked out that this might end up as the shot, so I brought along a bunch of garden twine (green, natch) for the bottles – would have been stuck without it… But tricky, because once you’ve spent this long on a shot, there’s not a lot of time for variety – I couldn’t get another idea out of this, it was simply variations on this, so you’ve got to be pretty clear that this is something that’ll run in your publication (and that the editor will like).

So the main thing here was arriving with a concept that would illustrate the story, bring along the ‘extra’ bits (string, background stands), but then to persuade the people who I was meeting that this was something they should really, really spend their next hour doing…

Which they did – and the pic was on the cover of the FE section that Friday.

Photo and text originally by Pine57 at Flickr

“Garbage regulations are very persnickety in Japan. Town by town regulations are different, some communities are more relaxed than others. But this is how things are done in my town. We have a burnable garbage day, 2 times a week, for things like paper and kitchen refuse. Our full name and complete address must be written on the outside of special garbage bags or the garbage man won’t carry it away and will also refuse it if there is something in the bag which isn’t considered burnable. Those bags are see-thru. Then, we have this recycle garbage day, every 2 weeks, on a Friday morning.

Next, we have a garbage day the other 2 Friday mornings a month for things that can be neither recycled nor burned, such as light bulbs and broken umbrellas. Newspapers, cardboard boxes, and tattered clothing are collected about 4 times a year by the elementary school PTA and another 4 times a year by the jr. high school PTA. Batteries are collected on a special date — previously only once a year. Things that don’t fit into these categories must be driven to the main garbage plant to be disposed of.

Every other Friday we have neighborhood recyclable garbage day. We are only permitted to put out this sort of garbage between 7 and 8 a.m. on that day — and tough luck if you can’t do it then because the garbage man won’t carry it away if you don’t follow the rules exactly! The Garbage truck arrives shortly past 8 so one can’t dilly-dally either.

Every sort of recyclable garbage is sorted according to category. Plastics in one bag, styrofoam packages in another, PET bottles in another. Then there are color coded boxes to collect aluminum, steel, clear bottles, green bottles, brown bottles, and so on.

All recyclables must be pre-washed and dried too.”

i had the chance yesterday to go to the new era party for their spring 2009 launch in the village. it was a pleasant time, especially after i finished taking a midterm. they were giving out green bottles and magazines and stuff.

when i was going home, i took some time to stop at the atlantic/pacific stop in brooklyn to check out the artwork they put up recently for the MoMA. numerous amounts of distinct artists were being displayed such as pablo picasso, vincent van gogh, andy warhol, etc. in a single subway station. i took some pics below, however, it’s running til march 15 so go check it out!

also, i would like to recognize the tragedy that went on in buffalo late thursday, where i am sure you have heard that 50 people have died due to a plane crash. a prominent jazz musician from rochester was on that plane, gerry niewood, who had been playing in the group the mangione’s and also played with simon & garfunkel in a concert in central park.

volkan

Mountain Dew is the best pop I know
nothin’ else for me, none,
no, a day without it, I can’t go on
other pop can’t compare to this one.

It helps me to sleep,
It helps me to wake,
though I can’t
drink it with cake.

Its my life force
it flows through my veins
without it I’m nothing
I go insane.

From the green bottle or can
to the liquid it holds
from the bubbles it makes
to the sweet sizzling sounds.

I savor every bit
don’t waste a drop
so I keep drinking
and can’t stop.

- Cody Learned written while in Grade 10 at Lincoln Northeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.A.

published in “A Celebration Of Young Poets: Midwest – Spring 2004″