Clutter - Image Brief

Highlight: Finding a use for the clutter in the house

Lowlight: My photos were the most cluttered of all the submissions

Fill in: For several years now (I kid ye not) the spare room in the house has been in various states of cluttered-upness, and plans for boot sales, auctions on Ebay and trips to the dump have been made and post-poned. Occasionally a bag of assorted clothes and shoes makes it into a charity bag and escapes via a PDSA van, but for the most part the clutter just gets sorted, re-sorted and as more and more stuff is added to the melee I begin to think some sort of space-time warp is happening, similar to the DR Who Tardis phenomenon. It is a constant source of tension in the house as everyone insists they have got rid of all their junk and everything in the room is the fault of  someone else's hoarding. So imagine my glee when a call for a photo of a cluttered room was posted on the Image Brief site. I didn't have to set up anything.

Tech spec: There was a slight problem of actually getting into the room. Various boxes had to be shifted into the hall, and I had to engage a bit of mountaineering skills to climb over the clutter to get by the window. I decided to use the window to light the whole scene from the front and kept the door open on the opposite side of the room, A. because it gave a fill in light at the back and B. because it was physically impossible to close it because of all the clutter. I used a wide angle close up to exaggerate the space and items and arranged a few of the more colouful items to the front. I also hid any brand names and logos to make the shot more saleable.

All the hard work paid off as I got the sale.