I absolutely love this photo taken by American photographer Doug DuBois. He was visiting his sister in New York when he noticed that her son had laid out his toy dinosaurs in a herd. I’ll let him tell you the rest:

“I was captivated. They reminded me of a shot I love: a child's-eye view of toys taken by the great French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue. It took me about five hours to set up. I kept moving the toys to get the light perfect and to echo Lartigue's composition. I taped a load of Spencer's books into a pile and put my camera on top, but it kept moving. By the time I got it right, I was so angry I only took one photograph. That's madness! You never do that – not as a professional photographer. I use a 4x5, one of those big, heavy cameras with a black hood. The results are incredibly detailed.”
He can say that again, everyone I show this shot to thinks it’s a painting.
I find the image very positive and hopeful, the toys have a life of their own (I blame Toy Story) but Doug thinks the opposite:

“This shot makes me feel sad. It just looks like something is over: a childhood maybe, or even a life. It's also a reference to the march of the dinosaurs in Disney's Fantasia; they were marching towards extinction. The chair is very important, too, for scale, balance and a feeling of emptiness.
My photography is about the dissolution – and the disillusion – of family. There's something of that in these dinosaurs. People look at it and think: "Oh, that's nice." Then they look more and see it's –actually a dark, disturbing shot.”

Doug’ thinks this is his best shot.
I couldn’t agree more.

Since loosing our lease we've been on the tortuous search for a new building,except we haven't really got into it yet because we're just too busy.

As you'll see if you check out earlier posts from Brian and I, we've made the best of things by making sure we meet up in town every day to plan what we need to work on, then head back home to get on with it.

Which for Bri is the beach and for me the Garden.

So this article on the Guardian's fantastic website set me thinking.....have a read.

"Over the last decade we have witnessed the miniaturisation of the office workplace. A cramped outbuilding which once housed lawnmowers and pots can now comfortably be insulated from the cold, fitted with its own electrics, and link you to anywhere in the world. It's an alternative workplace revolution. It's shedworking.

There are now more than 2.5m businesses being run from home.

The famous shedworkers who have attracted the most attention are artists and writers such as Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl, Henry Thoreau and Henry Moore (and there is a longer history to shedworking than some might think: the 18th-century man of letters William Cowper had what he called a "sulking room" in the garden at his home in Orchard Side, Buckinghamshire, where he wrote much of his poetry and prose). Nowadays you're just as likely to find accountants, lawyers and software specialists at the bottom of the garden as you are sculptors, because garden offices are big business.

Shedworking certainly has much to recommend it. Physically, it's easier to prevent – or at least restrict – your family and pets from invading your workspace. There is no need to double up on spaces, leaving your bedrooms and kitchen tables free for their intended purposes. Financially, it adds value to your property, up to 5% according to some experts, and installing an office in the garden is certainly far cheaper than buying a house with an extra room. Psychologically, shedworking marks a clear difference between where you live and where you work – there's no taint of work attached to any part of your home. Finally – and, if we're honest, the clincher for many shedworkers – it is just plain more fun, adding a certain pizzazz to your ­working life.

Moreover, commuting to the end of your garden is an option as popular among women as men. While nothing seems as unshakeable as men's interest in a shed-like manspace, over the last few years women have been quietly redefining shedlife, turning the new breed of garden buildings into places to work, create and think"

It's certainly set me thinking, now where did we put all those D&AD's....

Friends of ours, Gemma, Ken and little Estella Gray were on holiday recently in Venice. On arriving at Marco Polo airport they were actually pleased to wait for their bags to arrive.
Why? Because a smart Italian ad agency has converted the baggage belt into a giant roulette wheel.
I have to admit that I have seen this creative work already, I think It’s won several awards around the world, but Gemma and Ken hadn’t. So they got to experience it as the consumer is meant to, without warning and at first hand.
And what's really nice is that both of them work in the creative industry so they’re even harder to impress than your average punter when it comes to most advertising, but they both absolutely loved this.
According to the client, the Venetian Casino, visits have increased by 60% since the belt was created. (To be honest despite having been to Venice quite a few times I didn’t even know there was a casino so perhaps it’s just a great awareness campaign).
On the idea, there’s something ironic that clearly passed the airport authorities by, it does suggest that getting your luggage back at all is a game of chance.
But congratulations all round. In the UK this probably wouldn’t have made it past most airport authorities. (I’ve tried many times to do something creative at Edinburgh airport but always had the ideas rejected for “health and safety” reasons).
And in case you were wondering, it was little Estella who won big by correctly predicting that her luggage would land on Black 15.