Doing Laundry

September 10, 2014 by seabluelee 25 Comments

I’m taking an online class on still life photography called Be Still – 52, taught by the lovely Kim Klassen. I’ve never thought of still life as “my thing,” but I enjoy Kim’s quiet but effective teaching style and have learned a lot from her about post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements.

The year-long course includes a focus on mindfulness and inner calm along with the technical lessons and photo prompts. The class began in mid-May, while I was in the throes of apartment hunting and packing and moving, and the idea of slowing down, breathing deeply, and finding a quiet place to be still  through my photography was tremendously appealing.

However, all that apartment hunting, packing, moving, and unpacking again meant that I fell far behind in the class. Now that I’m (more or less) settled, I’m busy trying to catch up on past lessons and not fall further behind with current ones. How’s that working for me? Well………let’s just say I have a ways to go.

Anyway, one of my favorite prompts so far was “Laundry time.” I was recently given some vintage linens which I thought would make lovely photo props. Unfortunately, they had some pretty serious vintage stains, and were stored in a plastic bin with some anti-insect stuff whose smell gave me a headache. Perfect subjects for a laundry exercise, right?

Here are a few images I took as I washed, dried, and folded them for putting into the linen closet.

Clean and Simple

Hung Out To Dry

Edges

Finished

Sadly, some were beyond redemption, but these and a few others turned out beautifully. You’ll probably be seeing more of them as time — and class — goes on.