A while back I stumbled upon a Danish photographer called Keld Helmer-Peterson and all of a sudden I felt comfortable with the type of photography I wanted to pursue with passion. The photos I was particularly interested in were his colour industrial shots from the 1940s when many photographers would have still been using black and white film.

As soon as I saw his work the photos looked reassuringly familiar. They are very similar in theme to the ones I have been taking, or at least composing in my mind. The stuff I would love to be paid to take. And, here, whaddya know, there is a guy who has been making a living from that very thing! YAY!

So, last month I decided that I missed the quarterly excuse to buy photography books for college and set out to find a book by him. I couldn't find one. Oh, well, I found one place that seemed to have his photos on display but, being Danish and published some time ago it was hard to find anything. Yes, I checked eBay too.

So I did the only sensible thing I could do. I asked Jacqui to find a spare moment during her hectic busy work day to try to track down a book - remember Jacqui? Google Queen? I reckoned I would have her stumped at this one cos I really HAD looked hard for a book (and by that I mean one I could afford).

I think it took her about 2 minutes to find me three copies. And that is only because she had to break off to answer the phone.

I could buy a Used but also SIGNED copy at £122ish or a Brand New one for £40 including postage. It was a hard struggle. I really did fancy the signed copy - but - there was no way to justify the extra money for a scribble!

So I got the book and was absolutely delighted with the service. I paid £4 for postage and when it arrived the postage had been £7. It isn't often it works that way without someone whining at you for the difference. The packaging was fantastic and I loved loved loved the book.

Fast forward to this evening when I picked up the book to check something out and discovered, inside one of the first pages, tucked really close to the inner spine: a SIGNATURE!!!

YAYAYAYAYAYAY

How full of squees am I?

Very full!

If you call over I will let you stroke it.

But not for long.

Yay for the Google Queen. Yay for little surprises. Yay for a lift in an otherwise yukky day.

Tags: Books