Prop Me Up In The Corner And Hand Me My Camera

A few months back one of the piles of discarded props at the studio shifted and collapsed on the cleaning woman. Poor thing - she had a family. One day we'll have to clear the pile and send them whatever we find under it. Closure, you understand...

Studio props are like that. People give them to you ( " Oh this will be perfect for the next time you shoot Minoan snake goddesses...careful, he bites...") and you buy them and you find them on the side of the road on verge day. Some are sold by IKEA in flat packs for $ 99 and some are sold by antique shops for thousands...but none of them ever go away.

Pretty soon you have a shooting areas that occupies 30% of the studio and a prop storage area that occupies 60% - leaving 10% for the toilet and the coffee machine. Be careful when you flush. At some stage of the game you need to thin out the herd.

I tried sales - that worked for a while and some of the more spectacular bits left. Then I tried give-aways and that got rid of the plastic palm trees. and the Roman columns. Finally I resorted to drive-buy dumping. I can never go back to Government House ever again in case they review the video...

In the end I hope to be left with enough to enhance the natural beauty of my lovely subjects. Or disguise the features of all the rest. To that end I have retained the hats, gloves, and jewellery for the former, and two dressing-room screens for the latter - two in case one falls over.

Heading image: the lovely Emmy-Lou Korsett before her rampage on the road.