Saturday 31 March 2007

a socky self portrait

Since I started making socks, I've not really found a way of photographing the socks that I'm happy with. I must have looked like a complete dickhead just now, sitting on my front steps (where I thought there was the best late afternoon light), taking photos of my foot.

And if that didn't look silly enough, I was taking photos of my one foot in a green sock.

I've gotta say, I'm not a fan of my feet at the best of times. I think they are desperately ugly things stuck on the end of my glaringly white, dumpy legs. I wonder sometimes why I got a tattoo on my ankle - doesn't it just draw attention to one of my top three least favourite body parts? Any foot fetishists who stumble across this page (I think it was Happyspider who was lucky enough to get one dropping by one day) are going to be sorely disappointed.

(Side note: Julie, remember that woman whose blog post one day had a go at female bloggers who use self deprecating humour to excess and how she despised them? Did I just cross the line? I hope she's reading. I just gave her more material for her PhD on blogging, I think. Unless of course what I just wrote doesn't count as humour, in which case, scrap the whole idea.)

So, back to the problem at hand...sorry, foot.

I took thirteen photos. None of them really do the sock, let alone my left foot, any real justice.

Like this one

What's wrong with this? It's pretty obvious. The angle makes my calf and ankle look soooo wide and my foot disproportionately short.

So I tried something else.














I reached to the outside of my foot, watching the little screen and got this rather deforming angle.


Very, very unsatisfactory.












The traditional 'sock wearer's view' is probably the safest option. You get the full view of the stitch definition, a nice long stretch from calf to foot, which is great if you've got a pattern that continues all the way through the instep.


But I will get desperately bored if all I ever do is photograph socks this way - no doubt you will too.

I think this one probably works the best, although it's still not perfect.


Maybe next time I'll just wait til Sean gets home or finishes whatever he's doing and he can take the bloody photo!

That said, you've now seen my first Monkey sock from a variety of angles, some flattering, some less so, but really, when you've got a sock as gorgeous as this (special thanks to Duchess for the wool), it's kinda hard to go wrong, isn't it? I'm gearing up to making Pomatomus socks and so far Monkey seems like a good warm up. I luuurrrve them. I think I have a Cookie fetish.

Bells