Stuck inside....

If you like birds and bird photography, there is a guy called David M Bird that does bird photography using characters made from acorns and sticks. I'm probably never going to be a genius like him, but he was a Lego designer who started his own photography business doing these wildly popular photos. If I am having a grumpy day, all I have to do is pop over to his site and look at his fun photos.

There is also a Flickr photographer who is doing the same thing with his Lego characters. This is fascinating in the fact that in order to do this sort of photography, one really needs to study birds and get familiar with what they like to eat and how they arrive at a feeding station.

Below is my sad attempt at a first try of putting a Lego figure on the stump with feed just outside my window.
These are study shots so I can sit at the table and watch the birds behavior. Are they afraid of the Lego figure?
They don't seem to be.
I have been putting a wee bit of feed every day this winter on this stump next to the porch so I could see which seed they liked best and which birds came to the stump.

The Tufted Titmouse will come for peanuts and some other delicious seeds.

The Junco seems a bit more skittish. They are only on the stump for a nanosecond before flying off.

The Blue Jay has no shyness at all.

I used a paper clip I bent to fit through the foot of the Lego figure and then stuck it in a crack on the edge of the stump. 

I'm going to try this again but put a hole more in the center of the stump and surround the figure with delicious seeds.

It will be a fun experiment. Hubby loves watching too. He gives me a commentary on who is visiting the stump and what they are eating as he bemoans the cost of birdseed.

I changed it up a bit and stuck my green dragon in the stump and put seeds around it. The birds were very wary of the Dragon. But by the end of the day, the seed was gone.

I had to wait for a follow up call from the eye surgeon's tech. I hate waiting. I dislike waiting inside next to the phone even more. However, we have to use a land line. Archaic I know. But cell phones don't always work in our Hollow. The land line works with 911 and the cell can't be depended on.

My one eye was still dilated and so the welcomed sunlight was a painful.

My hubby was playing Eye Guard. He told me I could NOT go out to hike or run about and that I needed to Rest that eye and let it heal.

The surgeon had said I could go back to my regular activities 24 hrs later, but I decided to keep Mr. Eye Guard happy and stay around the house except for feeding the mules.

I decided to try some Still Life. I was bored out of my gourd. I am not one to sit in the house for days on end. After two weeks of being careful and being Watched by the Ever Present Hubby, I had to engage my mind in fun projects.

My first try at the light box.
Something for Valentine's Day

That gave me another idea. This time I just tore apart things and made this ---->
I set it on the floor.

And shot straight down. The Gardener is spelling out L O V E in flowers and fence pieces.

I couldn't resist one more effort of doing something more with the Gardener ...

Surprise!
I couldn't resist having a meat eating Dilophosaurus enter the garden and offer the Gardner some flowers. [The dinosaur is a Lego knock off. The real Lego Dino is way above affordable.]

I did a lot more experimenting with the light box and by early afternoon, I decided to rest my eyes and listen to music.

This morning dawned clear and bright. As someone said: 

I can see clearly now ... the fog is gone!
Gone are the cataracts that had me blind
It's going to be a bright bright 
bright
beautiful day....

I think I'll go Exploring some ice formations!

Endless days of snow and rain...

There are good things and not so great things about long stretches of cold rainy and snowy days.

The good thing was I worked on some deep cleaning. During the other half's nappy time, I had to be quiet [no vaccum cleaning or killing dust bison]. I moved Charlie's pillow to the new-old Christmas Chair which has had its legs cut off.

When I came back in the living room to mop the floor, I saw this. What a perfect spot for him! He likes the couch better. 

Squatch decided that he needed to build a good shelter. He was tired of cold wet fur and colder chilly nights.  Besides, he had Dog to think of.

He consulted with Doe who was one of the very first toys in my collection. She suggested building one.

A cream cheese container wrapped in cast off aluminum and encased in clay would make a good small cave.

Not exactly a castle, but...

with a fire, it seems pretty cozy. 

And then a neighbor dropped by for conversation, but the fire was so nice and warm....

He fell fast asleep. But his chicken carried on a conversation with Dog.

I made even a bigger mess in the one room I intended to clean up. I need to go back and do some major sorting. Out with the old junk, and in with the new junk?

Stuck indoors

If anyone at all was following the Midwest weather, then they know about the string of subzero weather we had.

It was kind of nasty but not the worst string of cold we've had. It is no secret that I like winter and enjoy snow sports.

Getting stuck inside for days on end except for chores makes me stir crazy. 

While hubby took his morning nap, I checked on my outdoor critters then decided to do a bit of Fun Fotography. 

My camera assistant helped of course.

Charlie carefully rearranged my herd of unicorns.

So happy that he got them rounded up!

I got out the woodsy guys and placed them on the floor. The light could have been better, but I'm still working on that. 

The hard part was bouncing the dim light from the windows onto the characters I was using and keeping the black foam board in back black.

When the boss woke up, he immediately tuned into ESPN, YouTube, and Showtime for boxing and sports at volume  ~~ VERY LOUD. I guess all the excitement of wearing hearing aides have worn off as they sit on the table gathering dust again.

There is nothing in the world that drives me more crazy than screaming fans and commentators that yell.

My cell phone was charged up so I grabbed my cheapo ear buds and plugged them in. Pandora, take me away!

Thunder from Imagine Dragons was the first thing I heard. 
Music seems to inspire and make me move and -- sometimes do a bit of a dance. It cheers me up and gets me motivated.

I danced in my own head and swayed to the music. One good tune after another. Charlie looked at me and closed his eyes. 

Thank goodness for music and ear buds!

This is what things look like for taking some fun still life stuff. No fancy studio. Just some black felt or white boards on top of the old trunk next to the back door.

Let there be Lego People and Monsters!

Tea time anyone?

Feed the monsters and they will be happy!

That old Trunk and other things

That old trunk I moved into the kitchen area happened to end up staying there. Somedays I use it for a laundry folding spot, some days I used it for...well,

this...

 I had a huge list of to-do's and some of it included the 'other' half. But just after his coffee and breakfast he went back to bed. Such can be our routine.

I thought I'd let it warm up a bit outside before I approached installing the large tank heater. If I busied myself with laundry and doing something creative, I could stay in the house and keep an eye on things.

My friend at the Farmer's Market had set aside a couple of neat gourds she thought I might like for me on Saturday. She said, "I thought of you and your pictures!"

So how could I not use them to do a bit of still life?
I admit, I don't have a studio and I don't have the fancy lighting stuff, but this will have to do for right now. I enjoyed picking out some paper to use as foreground and backround and trying to arrange things in a pleasing manner.

According to some Still Life experts, I don't follow the rules of just 3 objects, dramatic lighting, and moving from tall to short.

I have tried and tried to emulate some of those amazing and dramatic photos, but I keep coming back to just having some fun. 

I mean who can keep from smiling at Groot and a tiny wooden deer?

I have a feeling that Groot will keep showing up now and again.

Then of course, I had to clean up and organize things.

But not before just a bit more fun...

toys behaving badly....

Mice in the cupboards? 

Then I had to put things away and make lunch and tend to my mules.

The above is a sample of the odd box I found. The bottom piece is the only drawer our old kitchen had. Yes, you read that correctly. Our old kitchen had one drawer that was long and narrow. 

After tending to hubby and his lunch, I was able to find football highlights on YouTube for him to watch while I changed out the tank heater and did some in hand work with Siera. She seems a bit off in attitude with all the other mules. She is generally bossy and has been hanging out away from the others.

I have a call into the farrier for a trim anyway. He is fantastic at spotting any issues.

Finally, Charlie and I headed for the woods to collect SD cards from the cameras and have some quiet time.

Who can resist a Halloween themed photo....

Stuck inside

 Normally if the outside air temp gets to zero or just above or the wind is not too severe, I would be out and about. At least exploring the frozen creek. In fact I was looking forward to it.

Instead I pulled some lower back muscles and kind of mucked myself up. I think Grandma had a different word for it. 'Stove up.' Not sure where that comes from but dang it is how I have felt for the past few days.

Chores are a work of agony in a way. I have to use a hay fork and pile up hay in a huge sled and drag it out then toss it around. Thank goodness for the heated stock tank, but draining the hoses after filling it was another interesting experience.

Rest, Ice, and reading have been my new companions. Also getting yelled at gently by my hubby. 
Today I have to drive him to the Madison VA for his shot. Good, at least it will be in a facility that can help if he has a reaction. [My biggest worry]

So, because I'm going stir crazy, I decided to get out some items and follow an instructional video on specular lighting and Still Life.

Charlie has been doing his best to deal with no daily walks. I think he is doing better than I am!

So the Video Dude said to get out a bunch of things that would throw off light.
Check...

So the gnome doesn't throw off highlights but in the back of my mind I wanted to mess around with the gnome and the paperweight anyway.
The Video Dude said to 'sketch out' Still Life set ups. Pfft. That never worked for me at all. I just start placing stuff here and there and go with it. Video Dude said to follow the Rule of Thirds, to use the L shape for interest and leading lines. 

Um.

Then he went on to close all the light from HIS windows and then brought out a Light Stand with a Soft Box diffuser on it. 
Oh.
Granted, he was using HIS dining room table in an apartment, but he was using lights I didn't have ...and a flash tethered to his camera. Um. Not stuff I have or am going to invest in unless I become a person who sells my stuff.

I stopped the video. I'd thought it was going to present me with some ideas on how to do some Still Life without the fancy lights.
Poo.

So I got out my scrap piece of felt and draped it over the laptop, a chair and across the table. Then positioned the Gnome and the glass paperweight.

The idea was to get reflections off the glass orb and light up one side of the Gnome's face. So I sort of did a low key shot with specular highlights. That sounds like a mouthful. Basically I moved things around with the felt cloth until I could 'control' the light. No flash, no soft box. Just the kitchen table and felt.

I was happy with that and decided to try something else. I placed a board down on the old busted chair and draped the cloth over it. I'd put a sheet up to tone down the sunlight coming in from the porch and to keep the afternoon sun from shining in on Rich's face while he was watching TV.

The poster board was supposed to reflect a tiny bit of light on gnome and dragons for highlights.

The shot before darkening the black.

The shot after darkening the black felt and highlighting the beard and dragon faces.

I have some more 'polishing' to do on the black, but here are the first drafts.

Next up. 

The sleeping dragon and the Wizard Gnome.

Before.

After.

Oh yes, should I include the grumpy guy on the couch? I kept walking back and forth in front of the TV while setting things up and shooting. He kept sighing.

I set up some more dragons and items but I'll save that for another time.

I did shoot my English Ivy plant but was so disappointed in all the reflections on the pot.

The fix? Easy. Crop the sucker!

I'm still going to figure out ... I hope, how to take glass objects and figure out how to control the light and reflections. It will take sheets, felt, windows, and creative thinking along with a lot of mistakes.

But I may as well make use of my time while I am stuck inside.

Don't play with your food

I think every child has heard that from their mom. However. While making cookies I thought this would be fun.
I made a diorama out of an old wooden box and used ambient light from the kitchen window as my light source.

I did some more reading and read about a do it yourself softbox for lighting. Controlling the lighting is pretty fun. I'd tried that a week or so ago with the Dinosaurs, Dragons, and a lamp.

Two years ago I'd created a similar light box and photographed an apple. That experiment was just to do a product type of photo.
It sort of worked, but I still had a shadow on the lower part of the photo. 

I had a big cardboard box sitting next to the back door and I needed to do something with it. I remembered the softbox I'd made and thought I'd try another one. I got out the box knife and made a new lightbox. I cut out two sides and the top. 

Getting a light to shine down was difficult since I only had two lamps.

But it might work for diffused light from above the object I would be photographing.

I added scrapbook paper as a backround and then scrounged around for some items that might look neat.

I used rocks and 1931 Singer sewing parts. I found the tiny needles folded up cardboard labeled London 1851. I used a tiny Halo figurine.

The scrapbook paper provided a 'grunge' looking backdrop.

I looked around for something like a circuit board for a backdrop for the tiny soldiers.
The best I could come up with was more discarded Singer parts. These parts came from my Aunt's sewing machine she purchased in 1931.

I had a bit of fun with it too. 

Beam me UP!

And then I switched things up a bit.

This would have worked better if you couldn't see where I joined two white pieces of paper together. Uffdah! 

My little Not - Fairy Garden Dragons. 

Cute Dragon and Forest Dragon.

I really like Dragons!

This I lit up from the top by putting the camera on a timer and then grabbing the lamp and shining it down from the top of the box without knocking stuff over.

And for a bit of silliness.

I have no idea why I selected this, maybe because it amused me. I think cute hearts would have been funnier as a backdrop.

Giddyup!

Then this afternoon after a friend saw the dinosaur eating the cookie ... she texted me that it was so UNFAIR that her Zoo Crew she'd sent me didn't get any goodies!

I had made a cake [and believe me...that is a big effort!]. So after Rich had a piece, I ...

well

I...

played with the food...

The Zoo Crew !