Photohunt: Wooden

When I saw that the photohunt theme this week was wooden, my first thought was a wooden expression or a wooden performance by an actor. Ironically, my first wooden photograph is of my laughing Buddha who is literally wooden but has a very animated expression on his face. His smile is not wooden at all but is rather happy and full of fun.For the rest of this post I am going to feature my wooden screen. The coromandel screen below is very heavy which is why I wasn't able to do as good of a job of showing you both sides of the screen as I would have liked to.

The screen is in a corner of my living room so you can only see one side most of the time. Each of the 4 panels has distinctive work on each side. I had forgotten how much I liked the other side until I tried to photograph some of it for this post. The first 3 photographs are of the side of the wooden screen that you can see in my living room. When the screen was in my parents' house, they had it turned the other way. I think part of the reason why I have it turned the way I do is that I grew up looking at the other side. When I first moved the screen (or rather had friends move it as it's very heavy) into my house, I decided to try it on this side for a while.
For the purpose of the wooden photohunt, I wanted to shoot both sides of the screen. However, I didn't risk turning it all the way around by myself as it's quite old and fragile, as well as being heavy, and I was afraid of dropping it. I carefully folded it part of the way around and only managed to shoot two of the panels on the other side. Below is what I could shoot of the side which faces the wall.

According to an article I found about coromandel, the technique involves applying layers of wet clay to the wood, baking them in order to harden the clay, then applying several layers of lacquer. Once the lacquer dries, intricate patterns are carved on to the furniture, which is then painted with a protective finish.
I suppose I should try to find out if there is something I can do to preserve it better. I know that it's quite old and there was some damage long before it became mine. Now that I have looked again at the side of my screen which I currently have against the wall (the last 3 shots), I think I realize why my parents, always had it turned that way. Perhaps I'll get Bill to help me turn it that way soon for a change since I've had it the other way now for 10 years.

Photohunters post on Saturday at the home of the hunt, here - PhotoHunt

Early birds can be found on technorati here - photohunt