A few days ago I came across this photo in my archives, which I really like. I told Pete I wanted to be able to recreate the style (it’s a Heritage Seed Library envelope), and he went away and ordered me a stamp kit, which has a self-inking stamp, little rubber letters and a pair of tweezers. Apparently this was the closest he could come to replicating the particular font on the envelope (Pete being a bit of a font nerd :), although he has yet to definitively identify the font.
Anyway, yesterday I found the time to have a play with it and Pete’s new desktop photo studio, which has moveable lights and a pop-up light tent and everything. It’s very whizzy, and my still life subjects for the day were some interesting roots I bought in a local Chinese supermarket. A little bit of post-processing this morning, and these are the results.
Turmeric, of course, is very commonly used in Indian food although most people here in the UK would buy it in its powdered form. It’s strong yellow colour is also used as a dye, which you will know if you’ve ever spilled it down clothes ;)
This amazing creation was labelled as ‘galingale’, and I thought it might be galangal. In fact it’s Fingerroot, or Chinese ginger, which is used in Chinese medicine. But it’s also used as a spice in Thai food – where it is known as Ka Chai.
I had huge amounts of fun (and got myself covered in ink) playing with my new stamp, so I will be doing more of that in future. I’m hoping to pick up my project of photographing seeds again, as they make such fascinating subjects.
Rhizowen wrote:
...on Fri, Dec 2 '11 (168 days ago)