I'm friends with my apartment again

Spent a good part of the weekend just organizing and cleaning. When I do this I feel like I am back again at the "dating" stage with my apartment where all seems new and fresh and exciting. Well I guess not so hard to clean since I don't really have too much. I like my apartment simple and uncluttered. I took a few pics. I did not have a tripod at my apartment---well I had a tripod but not a tripod head---so I shot these handheld. Usually I am all about the tripod.

One of the best parts of cleaning is that I can then relax a little bit later on and look thru
some of my books for inspiration. Here is what I looked thru today.

This is from the book about Herb Ritts titled "Herb Ritts: The Golden Hour".
Herb was a major force in photography from the 80s and 90s. I remember
thinking, before I was a photographer but still a photo editor, "I wish I could
someday take pics like that..." His work was so stylised and sexy and
beautifully printed.

In that same "Let's take gorgeous pics of semi-clad beautiful men" vein, here are some spreads
from an epically photographed and printed and designed book by the photographer
Ruven Afanador. This book, Torreo, is on matadors. Ruven is from colombia and I am guessing
the bull ring and bull fight are part of his mythos. This book seems to me testimony to the idea
that what you know well and are passionate about will show in the final result.

NOMA (titled after the restaurant of the same name) is an outstanding book of recipes and photographs. The recipes are by

Rene Redzepl and the photography by Ditte Isager. The pics weirdly don't make me want to eat the food right
away as much as they make me with I was Danish.

And from the other side of the world but very close in terms of attention to esthetic detail is a book on Japanese photographers from the 1960s and 1970s called, aptly, "Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s". The image above is titled "Fushi Kaden" by Issei Suda.

Here is another book featuring work of a Japanese artist. This time a person who was
declared a National Living Treasure in Japan. Keisuke Serizawa. He practiced and exulted
"mingei" which is "people craft". Especially textile design. The above spread shows his
stencil-dyed raw silk of Japanese syllables.

Finally this little book titled "Watercolour Patterns" by Joost Van Roojen. I can't remember
where I found this book. Maybe even at the prop house but I love the paintings and color
treatments by Roojen.