Making Magic in an Ancient Library

Recently, a candle company contacted me to ask if they could send me a few samples in exchange for my sharing their products on my social media. I can never have too many candles, so I agreed readily. The company is Firelight Fables, and they are offering my followers 10% off orders with the code “GRACE10.”

First, I did an unboxing video. Watch this if you want to see my terrible attempts to describe the smell of candles. Ha!

One of the candles I unboxed, the largest one actually, was called “Ancient Library.” The name got my mind whirring. I’ve had it in the back of my mind for years that I’d love to take photos that looked like they were taken in a wizard’s study, or the office of a professor at Hogwarts. The problem with this is…I live in central Ohio. In a pandemic. I started asking around if anyone knew of a location where I could take photos that had a fancy library look, with old books and wood shelves. For a couple of weeks I had the question out there to one or two local friends who were in the know with local organizations and history.

Then I asked on Facebook, and a library coworker said “well what about the study rooms at Mary Babcock?” I slapped my forehead with my oversight. I’d been helping out at that branch two days a week for the last month, and I totally forgot that there were two small and cozy rooms that housed their local history collection, with glass bookcases of old books and a wooden table.

So I took a large cardboard box from home, and started grabbing items from around my house. Old books, potion bottles, feathers from my feather collection, a gryphon candle lamp, my iron candelabra, my wand, and even more. The box was so heavy when I was done, I had to have Tom carry it to the car. Oh, and of course I had to bring my much loved gothic wooden chair to finish off the look. My tiny Chevy Spark was packed full of props and items. Finally, a friend let me borrow his gorgeous tabletop astrolabe (I really need to get one of my own) to really drive the theme home.

With my car packed and ready to go, I went to bed and hardly slept at all, nervous that after all the work I’d put into it, the pictures wouldn’t turn out right. The next day I laid out my ensemble on the floor: a neutral colored witch/wizard hat with several feathers tucked into the brim, both as a nod to Professor MacGonagall, and also so that my character would have a writing utensil whenever she needed one. A brown velvet cape with ornate closures. A blouse with vinework embroidery detail. My favorite “Per Una” brand wool plaid skirt, and my tall brown lace-front boots. I drove to the library, borrowed their cart to wheel in the heavy box, and started setting up.

And things started coming together!

I knew I wouldn’t end up with a million photos from this set-up. Unlike my walks in the woods, I was content to end up with one or two photos I really loved. And I did!

Here is a behind-the-scenes video I made from the experience.

And finally, here are the two final photos I created that day. One is obviously digitally enhanced, but the other is straight out of the camera. The lighting was really phenomenal!

I explain in the behind-the-scenes video how I made the second “levitating spell book” photo, and I also used the app Werble to make an animated version to share on Instagram (below). By the way, the program I use on my phone to do special effect photo editing is called PicsArt and I really love it.

I think these are some of my favorite recent self-portraits I’ve done, and I hope you love them too. The non-photoshopped image was the 5x7” print for my Patreon patrons at the “Faunish Fans” level and up for February, but I will also offer either image for sale for $10 a print to anyone interested. It really looks gorgeous in printed format, if I do say so! ;)

So is this what your study would look like if you worked in an Ancient Library? What would yours look like, and what would some of the book titles be?