This interpretation of playtime was what I came up with as the hours dwindled the night before this assignment was due. I had tried to come up with something involving people, but with work being busy and not having much of an opportunity to get out and shoot, I had to force myself to think of something.
This old leather bound volume of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare had some nice texture and was a good fit for my play on words. I thought that the two text shots turned out great, with focus locked on two of the most well known lines.
I used a flag on the flash to create the slit of light on the lower text while I just used depth of field to draw the viewer's eye to my selected text. This was one instance where I thought the last minute pressure to get a shot resulted in a better shot than what I would likely have come up with otherwise.
On Taking Assignments
I frequently listen to the On Taking Pictures (OTP) podcast, which I highly recommend to anyone looking for good conversation about creativity, especially as it related to photography. In January 2014 the hosts, Bill Wadman and Jeffery Saddoris, began a new segment of weekly assignments that they gave to listeners. Results of the assignments are posted on the OTP Google Plus group. I decided that I would commit myself to the assignments for a year without interruption, and that I would complete each one before the next assignment was announced on the show each Tuesday morning. My 'On Taking Assignments' blog posts are the culmination of my year-long focus on these assignments.