AREA RUGS SHAW

1. The location of this photo was taken in my home in the family room. It is a window that faces the west side of our house with an adjacent, enclosed porch. I would have preferred to venture outdoors for my photos, but the limitations of my foot issue deterred me from walking in snow.

2. The challenges I encountered were choosing a pattern photo and the settings on my camera. I contemplated making a pattern, but eventually decided on the window.

3. My choice of orientation was a fairly easy decision. Chapter 6 in our book states that shooting a photo vertically will most often help eliminate clutter and unnecessary distractions. Ironically, in this photo, it was most beneficial to eliminate clutter by taking it horizontally. Plus, I wanted to capture the majority of my pattern which was accomplished by the horizontal position. It is interesting to note that vertical photos tend to signify vitality and active forces, while horizontal photos represent calm and serenity. I think these photos were a little tougher to invoke these types of responses.

4. The problems I encountered with all of my photos was striving for the best shot in regards to lighting, composition and learning all that my camera can or cannot do. I tried taking this photo standing on the carpet and standing on a chair, horizontally and vertically. I chose standing on a chair and horizontally because it was the best shot to eliminate distractions such as other windows in my porch, an unsightly hook hanging from the porch ceiling and the walls of my porch. I really wanted the attention drawn mostly to the beautiful, prism and lead glass pattern in the window.

5. I chose this as my best photo because I thought the prisms in the glass gave an interesting dimension to the porch ceiling. The prisms created a fascinating depth of field with my ceiling that I did not catch until the photo was downloaded onto my computer. The illusion that my porch ceiling goes on forever was really quite interesting to me. Technically, I feel that I captured three assignments in one in this photo. It displays several patterns with squares, triangles and another geometrical shape, but it also presents lines in the window and the ceiling. The smoothness of the glass window and the lead adjoining the prisms gives the illusion of physical texture, but I think would fall in the category of visual texture because of its smooth flat surface. However, I do really like my texture photo which displays a close up shot of a 12 point buck hanging on our wall (I didn’t shoot it). You can actually see the bark that is rubbed into its horns and the contrasting coarse hair. On my lines photo, I really like how the snow emphasizes the lines of our neighbor’s porch and the angle of the snow next to the lattice.

The family room is complete except for one major detail. The carpets were supposed to go in this week but the %@#$& person who measured them added it up wrong. Now, 2 to 3 more weeks. I painted the floor white for the time being, and we moved the sofa into the room.

Costco Home Decorating gets an F- for customer service. Honestly, when I actually had a job, if a customer did not get what he expected from me, I gave him a call. Always. No doubt of it. It might not be comfortable or easy to make that call, but you do it. Then you try really hard not to screw up the next customer. Costco and their in-home services people do not get it. We tried 5 times to reach them about the mis-measurement and have not received a return call. That should know that this is the best way to turn a miffed customer into a dissed customer who will do nasty mean things like spread the word from here to Timbuktu about the lousy customer service at Costco.