Christmas Chair...

I decided to go all wooden this year. Driftwood from Lake Michigan found while hiking with good friends. Odd looking roots found while walking in the woods. Old wooden boxes, sewing drawers, the old kitchen drawer from before the remodel.
A green bench from Donna's Daughter's in Coon Valley.

I like this because I will probably redesign things several times over the next few weeks. I like setting it up as if I am going to do Still Life photography with it. Last year I painted a few branches and I used the old Christmas tree to adorn the chair.
This year I'm going to see if I can avoid the green tree and do a non traditional decoration.
The branches I cut while walking with Charlie last week. The grape vine wreath was something I've always wanted to try. And this year I did it. I am leaving it plain though.
Toss in a few birch branches I found on the ground and....well, I am ready!

Here is a dog food can that was painted and decorated last year. This year I took a chunk of wood and a napkin with a snowman on it...I did Mod Podge and crackle on the chunk of wood, then glued it to a stick. Viola! Fun decoration with no real money spent!

I like this. Non traditional and unique.

And very different from the past few years:

At least that is how I am planning it!

I'm going with less glitz and very few ornaments too. Basically I thought it would be fun to set it up as small 'sets' for Still Life Photography.

This year I bought some floral foam to use for the branches and some of the sticks. I moved the boxes around and put boxes inside of boxes. I even found what might have been an old handmade silverware organizer and used that.
I was going to paint it, but decided to leave it alone.

And then there was Charlie who had to get involved. Well, he watched until I started draping garland beads over him.
Then he looked at me and away from the camera. As if to say "Ho hum."

And then as if to say "Hmmm, I'm not too sure about this whole thing."

"Puhleese. I am too dignified for this."

"Well perhaps this scarf is better. Can you believe it, I'm only as big as the bear next to me."

"And there you got it, scarf and beads. I am the bomb."

The chair is behind Charlie. More shots coming later.
Charlie has been so good through all of this and seems to not mind getting dressed up.

Can't go out to play so...

So I thought I'd get out the bathroom mirror that I saved for whatever reason when the guys gutted the bathroom.

I thought it would be fun to use them this winter in some of my Still Life work.
Again, this was an easy set up. I put the mirror down on top of a plastic tote and then simply began to arrange things around.

The egg was a wild idea. Yes, it is a raw egg and no, there was nothing holding it in place. It looks like the egg-s are suspended.
Rich wasn't feeling good so instead of taking the hike at the Kickapoo Reserve to see the unfinished dam, I decided to stick around the house.

I got out some of my cups, rings, and baubles and arranged them in different manners. I didn't use any other light than that which came in from the window behind me.

I would love to do some light experiments soon though.

I used old necklaces and other items I have in my 'junk' box. I used a doily I found at the flea market as a backdrop along with an old white table cloth.
The silver rings and ribbon came from a wedding invitation that my daughter in law made. Yes I sometimes keep odd things.

And not all are keepers. The photos were okay, but didn't really have any zip or WOW factor.

And then I did this.
And it made it worth it.

I was happy that I stayed inside and didn't go out ... to play.

Still Life Week 3

Be Still 52, Still Life Photography Class, week #3. 

Kim Klassen's class on Still Life this year is a self paced class.  

I am taking it as a challenge because Still Life has never ever been something I was terribly interested in, so I find this challenging and pretty exciting too.

The shot above is more often what I like in Still Life.  Or if you want to call it, "Skull Life" that is okay too.

I used a black t-shirt as a back drop and a black poster board to arrange the skulls on.
I used a dresser as my 'table top'.  I wanted an all black back-round to go with the skulls.

The skull in the back is a doe skull.  The ones on each side of the painted skull are ground hog skulls.  The painted one is a raccoon skull.
What can I say?  Animals fascinate me.

So to go from that to this:

Is pretty challenging!

Here was my 'studio' set up.

Note the camera assistant inspecting the items on the floor in front of his crate.
Also note, the house is currently getting prepared for a major remodel so we have throw rugs on the area where we took out bricks [sigh, they would have made an interesting back drop!].

During the series of shots with ambient light coming through the window, I had a hedgehog toy come flying into the foam board and knock it over. 
I'm sure Morris was just trying to see what would happen if we didn't bounce a bit of light.

He assisted by hitting the cup and bouncing beads all over. I call it 'dog art'. It ended up being a nice random pattern so I left it that way.

Materials used.  Old white rug.  White foam board. Nikon D5200. Tripod.
50mm Nikkor lens [great lens, fast!]  Plastic beads in multi colors, fake pearl necklaces, a pair of earrings, and old coffee cup, and a Thank You card from my oldest son's wife.  I had no idea why I kept it, but it really served a purpose here.

I took many shots, including one with a silk scarf that I really liked.

But then I had to see how it would look in Black and White.

Eh...so so... but I liked it.
Then I tried using black and white but adding a yellow tinted filter with CorelAfterShotPro.

Better, but it needs a crop at the top like I did with the color version.

Yet I wanted to try some other ideas.  I wanted to do High Key!

Well that did not work!

Onward, how about another angle?

For some reason I really like the color in this.  The cup has a rather neat pattern that lends itself to this shot.  The rug adds just enough texture to be interesting, I think.

But, it still wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I settled on the first shot as my final.

Today I may head down to a junk shop and browse for some more interesting things for more still life photos.

As I fell asleep last night I had a few ideas that included a couple of toys.
Hmmm.