Dovetailing

Like many of the bloggers listed over to the left, what posts I put up of late have had little to do with poker.  This one shall marginally rectify that. Key word: "marginally".

What I have been putting up here are photos. Why? Because that's what takes up a decent chunk of my leisure time these days - you know, where poker used to fit.

Anyway, for one course's final assignment, we have to create a portfolio of work concerning a central theme. The concept can be as broad as we like if I understand correctly, but there needs to be some cohesion between the pictures, shot in our own particular style.

I have chosen "poker night" as my theme.

No, no pictures yet. I just decided on the idea a couple days ago.  For you see, this whole semester has seemed to focus on vice in my work.  Quite unintentionally I assure you. Craps with RPG dice, a beer ad, martini glasses filled with liquids of various colours.  Vice.  The fact that I'll be in Vegas smack dab in the middle of this assignment wasn't lost on me either. But I'm not about to cart studio lighting to Nevada so I can get a shot of a bra on an Aria doorknob with a sultry leg disappearing behind the door. I can do that with a regular flash.

So poker night it is. Having been to and hosted a few in my time, I think I have a handle on the required elements.  Chips, felt, cards, button, drinks, chips, money... but no people, I dislike portraiture. The basics are easy. It's the story that becomes tricky.

Do I just present different angles of the setup? Chips with cards in the foreground, a half-drank beer next to a solitary chip, a stack of $20's behind a larger stack of reds? Do I show the night progressing by dwindling and growing stacks and emptying drinks? Or does a more sinister tale get told? A stack growing larger, a third ace slipping on the table, chairs then overturned with a red smear across the ace of spades and the smoking muzzle of a gun just in the frame?

Or is the gun too much?


However I figure it out, this should be a fun project.  Likely a real pain in the ass lighting-wise, but fun nonetheless