The Glaciator Shoot

Go ahead and skip this if
you aren't into toy Photography!

I was determined to really work on getting a MOC [My Own Creation] set up with this challenging Lego Character I found. He is from a set created in 2009-2010. Some of the minifigs that came with this set are now 'worth' around $40 to $50 because they are not made any more. Interesting? Right? For a TOY??? 

Anyway, after all my morning chores were done and along with a walk in the woods with Charlie, I spent the hot afternoon on Saturday trying to finally work on getting the lighting for the set and shooting the minifigure to my satisfaction.

Okay, it may be a stupid and frivolous sort of thing to do for a person of my [ahem] age. But it really engages my mind and imagination.

The layout and lighting were pretty much the same as last time. I added an LED flashlight to position on Glaciator's face and gave him his red dynamite to hold.

I set the face mister on its side and turned it on. It took about 20 shots to find the right 'mist' effect.

I turned him slightly and moved him. I found a nice bright white balloon light and pushed it up to his bum. If I'd had a clear Lego Plate, I would have lit him up from underneath. I wanted the light to shine through his clear bits and yet see his face too.

The face mister was set behind him to mist into glow of the lights from behind the transparent wall.

I had to brighten his eyes in post otherwise they really don't show up at all.

Then I had the bright idea of doing a real close up of him and spray him with the mister and some water. He and the set were wet anyway from previous shots.

He looks rather menacing here with his mouth open. The first shot was taken with a very shallow depth of field and the light did not appear in his mouth.

This shot below was done with a more depth, and no flashlight on his face.

This allowed the glow in his mouth to show up. What a difference DOF and lighting makes!

I can't decide which looks better as I like them both for different reasons.

I would have liked to have 'shot' him with dynamite in both hands, but I only have one bundle of dynamite and I kept everything in the same tone of color except for his eyes.

His body is more a a grey color when seen in regular light and his red eyes are not so obvious.

This was done for my own entertainment. I'm keeping this MOC and am going to change it up slightly. It is an interesting way to play with light and I keep imagining different ways to use it.

How would a mirror reflect the light and mist? Would a different color produce a different atmospheric feeling?

And so forth.

With Saturday's temperatures so hot and humid, it was a pleasure to work inside with tiny lights and toys.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Hot Hot

We've had a pretty decent summer so far. Cool mornings and nights even though we had a lot of rain and bugs.

Now? Yikes, I was not ready for a 79* dew point, with 79% humidity and 80* temps yesterday morning. Yuck. Yuck and double Yuck.

I did outdoor work and my errands early. I made cold Italian pasta  salad for supper and retreated to the indoors for most of the day.

I continued to mess around with my Lego bricks and lights to make that Space Challenge Scene that was on for last month. Even though I didn't come close to 'winning' I enjoyed the fun in making interesting scenes to celebrate Lego's Space Theme for the past month.

This really didn't work out as I imagined but I had a lot of fun building the Labratory. I created a space environment with an AI generator for the background.

I placed the works on top of a wooden block on my keboard...

and ended up with this....          👇

I am learning now to build and then set up a camera and see what view the camera can see and use that area for details. It is different building for fun and building a little 'set'.

Setting up the 'set', lighting, and characters is hard! It is so much easier to do a Lego shoot outdoors in my opinion.

Here I just took my Little Tourist Alien and set him on the porch with some rocks and one of my garden Gargoyles.

It was rather easy to deal with the lighting and scene.

Since I was avoiding the heat and humidity, I thought I'd build something fun and unique to use a new character with. It was to be Spacey and have Cool Lighting.

I began with a plan. I wanted a blue eerie lit background. That meant making a part of a wall with see through blue bricks. I put it on a white baseplate and used irregular Lego 'rock' bricks to make the back wall for a cave or alien planet texture.

[The brick texture didn't show up because of the lighting!]

So the idea was to have a space creature walking down the path of blue crystals with cool lights. I noted that the back wall didn't really show up and how was I going to include that in the photo?

As always, I never take the easiest route when trying this out. 

I first tried it with two little blue balloon lights and a white light. I laid the face mister on its side and turned it on to add some glow to the light.

It was sort of cool but it was hard to tell what was going on.

So I went with more color. Of course. When in doubt, make it harder.

I like this version just because of how the red lit up the bricks around the Glaciator Power Miner Minifig and set a menacing tone. Apparently this Power Miner was the supposed to have the power to turn things into ice and explode them. There was a game based on these characters and sets that saw popularity from 2009-2010.
I just saw this guy at a garage sale and picked him up for $1. 

He is also partially made out of transparent plastic.

After all of that what did I learn? I learned that I made something fun and cool. However, the picture doesn't tell any story at all. Nothing. It is just a cool lit up minifigure. I learned that indoor photography with added lights takes a lot of experimentation and adjustments.

I kept this build so I can try again to re-shoot it to tell some sort of visual story. I realize that I should have had a little bit of light coming from directly above the 'set'. That might make a difference.

I was frustrated and pleased with the experiment.

So early this morning I went out with my pal Glenda and created an easy story on the porch.

Glenda rarely needs any explanation for what she does. 

She just does her thing and I follow her around....

It promises to be another extremely hot and humid day.

PS~
Welcome August.

Charging into the week ahead

This week will mostly be a rinse and repeat of the previous week. I had to make some quick adjustments had to find a back up ride for the early morning surgery on Thursday.

The problem with a February thaw is that it just as annoying as a large storm. Warm temps with snow melt cause creeks to rise and gravel road surfaces to thaw. At night it freezes and ice ruts form in the roads. 

The weather service calls for rains and some winds along with thaws and freezing. So it should be a rather fun week. In years past, I've enjoyed these quick thaws when the creek rose with a foamy snow melt. I won't be able to enjoy it much this time around.

The day before surgery, I decided to make a dark/light box with the wood blocks I had saved for kids to play with when visiting.

I'd been reading a site called Brick Central which had tips and tricks regarding photography and Lego characters.

I came up with this:

The red light is from an LED flashlight and an old red film filter that I got from my dad years ago to use in black and white photography. I tossed a piece of black material over blocks in back and eventually got this:

The Lego minifigure is Maisie, the big Dinosaur is called Blue, and the little one is called Beta. These details I got from the box. I guess they are characters from the movie Jurassic World which I have not seen.

I had so much fun with the lights, I tried another method.

I used a piece of blue paper--with a blueish colored filter over the lens-- and a blue balloon light hidden behind a rock to light up the Acorn Guy.
I added the mist afterwards. 

It was a very fun experiment in lighting and creativity.

Oh, and I ordered a Light Box as I was so impressed by some of Larry's photos of old toy cars he'd done in his new light box.
If I have to be stuck inside for many video and phone appointments, I may as well use my time challenging myself in learning new methods of photography.

Sunday night I went hiking in the moon light. Since my normal hiking pal couldn't go, I grabbed my camera and tripod and took off.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do.

The light from the moon was incredible.

That is a deer trail that is in the exact same spot over the snow, year after year. So I set the camera up in the road and decided to have some fun.

Coveralls and my Skunk hat. I even laid down in the snow. I may as well! The snow will be melting!

I walked down the road a ways and tried another multi shot. This didn't turn out so well and the images are sort of blurry, but it still was fun to do. At least you can see Skunky!

I topped of the evening with a star trail photo of the Big Dipper.

I was out for about an hour and walked a couple of miles [I saw no one at all, not even a coyote!].

And then headed back home by the light of the moon.

How's the eye doing? Great! I am looking forward to the second surgery. 

I think the hardest part of this process is adjusting to the changes in vision and for me having one strong clear eye and one very yuck eye. My weak eye gets very tired right now trying to keep up with the good one.