New YouTube video! Matching environments for composites.

 It is here.  Watch it, or not.  I am a content creator, and not a good one.  I am not a cop, so do as you will, but I think you should check it out just the same.

Photography Scavenger Hunt Round 31: Sparkle

The 31st round of the Photography Scavenger Hunt is upon us.  This is my entry for the word "Sparkle"

There are some words where ideas come fast and loose, and one is almost spoiled for choice.  Others I have to fight tooth and nail to get even the faintest thread of an idea.  Sparkle was the exact middle - no ideas at all until blind inspiration struck out of the blue.

So when I get a list of hunt words one of the first things I do is write them in a notebook, and then I write some first thoughts associated words beside them.  This helps spark my creative flow.  For example, this is my notebook for Ink:

Contrast that with my notebook entry for sparkle:

So much to work with there, eh?

"Nerts!" I said to myself, and I grabbed my headphones and went for a walk.

I am not sure if it was the muses shining on me or the music of choice or a combination of the two, but I got about half way down the path - right where the path bends to follow the river... you know the place, when the following thought came to mind.  "Tinkerbell has sparkles!  I bet Tinkerbell could become a photo... but,I normally shoot Deadpool.... Tinkerbell... sparkles... shoot... Deadpool.... wouldn't it be great if Deadpool shot Tinkerbell and she exploded in a mass of sparkles?"

Then that became: "It *would* be *freakin' awesome* if Deadpool shot Tinkerbell and she exploded into a sparkle ball!"   Then I started to laugh like a mad man.  I literally LOL'd right there where the path bends to follow the river.  When I laugh at an idea, I know it is a winner. 

When I got back to my studio I hopped into Photoshop to play around to see if I could get a sparkle effect I was looking for.... turns out I could.  So I took a shot of Deadpool to composite into the shot:

If that shot looks weird, its cause it is.  I have been playing around with an idea I've had to shoot figures in front of a TV screen, with the background I plan on using projected behind them.  This allows me to get scale, and more important, angles (light positioning, but also camera angles, and posing) correct for whatever I am going for.  I then still comp out the character as normal, but this way I know the figure is correct for the background.

I comped it together, and I laughed again.  I showed it to my wife, and she loved it.  And the coup-de-grace - I showed it to my 7 year old daughter, expecting her to revolt and the idea of Tinkerbell exploding, but she literally doubled over laughing.  Then she said something that makes me know she's my daughter - "Uh, Daddy... the wand is wrong."

I scoffed at that... then I did research, and dang it, she was right!  So I changed the wand, polished things up, and came up with the final image that I submitted to the hunt.

Ironically this was the first photo I had finished for this round of the hunt.

BTW if you are wondering if Tinkerbell deserved it, I refer you to Peoples Exhibit A: https://peterpan.fandom.com/wiki/Tinker_Bell#Personality. In which you will find she attempted to murder Wendy, and as an adult fairy has dubious intentions towards the minor, Peter.  She is one naughty pixie.

The Salty Death Of My Trusty Camera

 This week was a tragic week at Studio Dave, for it saw the lost of a trusted friends... my beloved camera, a Sony a6500 camera body with a 18-200mm lens.

It all started on a trip to the coast of North Carolina to get some much needed breaks from the work from home world that is all our lives recently.  Pandemics are dumb, and I think we should stop having them, but it's not my call, so I'm making the best of it.

This is actually the second attempt at a beach trip this year.  The first was preempted by Hurricane Isaias back in the first of August.  I was so excited to actually go somewhere I made a 1/12 scale beach chair for Deadpool to sit in (as one does) for our first trip.  The chair looks like this:

That chair has been sitting in my camera bag for almost two months. So when I got to the beach I was super excited to finally get to use the chair in a shot.  I set up on the beach, put Deadpool in his chair, added some props, and clicked away happy as a clam.

My wife was nearby and said "I think this wave is gonna get close".  I looked up and saw the wave approach, but stop just before my setup, so I said "Nah, it's fine."

"But..." my lovely wife exclaimed, "what about that one!".

I looked up to see a rogue wave crash into my setup and bury Deadpool, the chair, and my camera in nice salty ocean water.

I pulled it up right away, but it was too late. The camera was drenched.  Most of the controls were full of beach funk and didn't work anymore. The lens no longer focused, or showed its f/stop.  Oops.

The camera is a trooper tho, and the last shot it took before the wave hit happened to be the exact shot I was looking for. Thanks little buddy.  That shot, polished up in Photoshop, looks like this:

When I got back to the beach house I looked at things more closely.  Swapping lenses with my wife's camera (which is identical) showed that indeed both the lens and the camera body were both dying. Sometimes the camera would give errors, sometimes it would do nothing.  I then switched it to automatic mode and I was able to take a photo. Then I hit the shutter  again and it went into burst mode, and wouldn't stop until I hit the power button. It could no longer be focused, especially if the lens was zoomed out.

Clearly my camera was now possessed by a salt demon.

 I could take a photo, and if I happened to put a figure in the exact right spot where the focus was when it died I could get a clean image. It's a very limited set of options, but it has one more dying gasp of art left in it.

Thats when I had the idea to give my camera one last send off and try to capture the cause of its death in some sort of poetic finale.  So I went back down to the beach, with my wife in tow (as external documentarian), and set up Deadpool in the surf, and waited for a nice large wave to roll in.  This was the last thing my camera saw before it died completely:

After this it showed an "overheated" message on the back screen, (ironic given it was covered in water) then went black for the last time.

It's.... it's dead, Jim.

My wife also captured its final moments:

Thanks little buddy.  You and I made some great art, and had some great adventures together.  You will be missed.

In other exciting news, my new camera arrives in two days.

Farewell, Stan Lee

I was saddened to hear about the loss of Stan Lee earlier this week.  Stan contributed strongly to the world of story telling, and bringing the ideas of fantasy, science fiction, and super heroes to our culture.  Without his creative genius it is quite possible I would not have as many toys to photograph today.  I certainly would not have all of the Marvel characters than make up a significant percentage of my art.

The universe he created, and the characters and stories that inhabit it, has been a source of escape, entertainment, and inspiration for me.  My world would be smaller without the Marvel Universe.

Thanks for the heroes, Stan.  Rest in peace.

Alternate Realities

With a vivid imagination the imaginary worlds described in books can seem almost real. Be careful what you read, 'cause some imaginary worlds are more real than others.

This is my most recent experimentation with shooting action figures, with a bit of a genre mix to include my self portraiture work as well.

I got the idea for this shot the first time I watched the credits for the totally awesome cinematic event known as Deadpool 2.  The ending credits shows hand drawings of Deadpool interacting with the other characters in interesting ways.  This is how I imagine he'd interact with Yours Truly.

I used my 20" Deadpool figure for this shot, as well as a very temperamental Dave stand in (he's becoming a bit of a diva - it is a bigger problem than you think!). However with some coercion, bribery, and a heavy dollop of Photoshop Magic(tm), I managed to get the shot I wanted.

Maximum effort!

Deadpool Rocks

This is my latest attempt at shooting action figures.  Deadpool rocking out.

What is notable about this image is that it is the first time I played around with practical effects. 

I wanted to give a smokey effect to add some ambience to the image.  Some smoke effects to go with the rock concert feel.  I started using actual smoke, but my smoke machine, which is perfect for LEGO sized images, wasn't really sufficient for the much larger 20" Deadpool figure.

So I went back to the ol'd standby: water in a spray bottle. 

This is a peak behind the scenes.  Along with the two speedlites at table height to provide side and rear illumination (think stage lights), I also had a speedlite on a stand in front of the figure to fill in the shadows.

I think it turned out pretty good.  I am going to mark this attempt a success.

On to the next image - what shall I do next?  Suggestions welcome.