Locks with Keys

These locks have been around a while. They’ve been tucked into one of my workshop drawers out in the garage. Funny, I call it a work shop, yet I don’t really do any work there. I’ve always had a “shop”, but it’s one of those “dad had a shop, so I have a shop like he did” things. I also have tons of screws, bolts, gizmos and gadgets…just like he did. In fact, I’ll bet that some of these are HIS gadgets. No doubt a few of these locks were his. The fact they they all have keys is a miracle.

Although they’ve been in the shop a long time, they didn’t live together. It wasn’t until I got into a hyer-focused organizing binge (thank you ADHD) that I grouped them together. It was another several years that they lived together until one day….

The day that I was wracking my brain for a new photo idea. I had just re-discovered them a couple days prior while looking for a way to lock up my photo gear. As a result, they were handy. I’m placed them in a drawer in the dining room hutch (the perfect place when lazyness strikes – and I can’t be bothered to take an extra five steps into the shop to put them away.)

So, let’s decide on a background. A few months ago I was wandering though Menards and found myself in the flooring department. Don’t ask me why. I am a renter these days and doing any kind of flooring is far from my thoughts. But I happen to see some sample squares of linolium. KNOCK-KNOCK Pudin’ Head! These would make for cool photo surfaces. So I picked up a bunch of squares in various colors and textures for product photography. I’ll bet you can find other photos within my collection where I’ve used these floor samples. I saved hundreds of dollars here because buying similar photo backgrounds online runs about $90 per suare yard. These squares were under three bucks each. Somebody gimme a Cha-CHING.

Next step – How to arrange them. I tried several arrangments that were laughable until I finally landed on “the circle.” Once I landed on the circle idea, I continued to mess with them for a bit until I arrived at the final result.

The lighting here was mostly window light, but I added an LED side light to bring out some reflective qualities of the chrome. The gradual shift from darker to lighter was intentional.

If you look really close, you’ll see that there is a small cut out on the key with the small pad lock in the center. Whenever you see this scenario, it means that some idiot locked the only key onto the actual pad lock to keep it from getting sepaerated from the lock. I wonder who that could have been.