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.

Experimenting

My Olympus M 1 Mark iii has a couple of cool features that I love. Starry Sky AF. Most Oly cameras have standard options for taking cool longer exposures called LiveComposite. 

When using the  Starry Sky AF, the camera seeks out stars and locks in focus! Amazing. I did that Friday night even with the nearly full moon and clouds moving in. I thought I'd experiment for a bit later this year when I'd like to go to the KVR ponds on a clear night and photograph star trails reflected in the water.  

Here is a crappy shot of the camera doing its thing, taken with the cell phone.

Here is the result.

For camera buffs, the settings were ISO: 1600

f stop: 2.8 

12mm lens

Livecomp settings: 15 sec exposures for a time limit of 15 minutes.

Post process, not much just DxO PhotoLab 4 PrimeNoise reduction.

So the Livecomp basically adds any light it sees to the original picture. I really don't know how it works, however it saves me from having to purchase a program and manually stack star photos taken individually. It feels like cheating, but it also is fun.

Even with the bright moonlit sky, I got a nice star trail. Nothing exciting, but now I have figured out how to do it.

I took the Full Spectrum camera an Olympus OMD EM 10 Mark iii [entry level and damn fine camera] and set it up without any filters.

I was very surprised at the amount of light the FS had!

Cell phone shot:

That was the pasture, so I took the camera and pointed it south.

Settings

Manual Focus [I'm not as good at that as I'd like to be...old eyes?]

ISO: 800

f 1.8

25mm lens

Livecomp settings: 4 second exposures for 4 minutes.

The clouds moving through left interesting streaks. I could have desaturated the ground, but just left it as is. Very little noise in this shot!

Again, it could be fun to try this summer on top of Black Hawk rock shooting the Milky Way or star trails!

I lost track of time while out in the pasture. I didn't walk back to the house until after midnight. 

Morning brought dense fog and rain. Yuck weather.

I made a huge mistake and went shopping for some things we ran out of. The local Walmart wasn't too bad when I walked in.

I got distracted in the craft and paper section. I haven't browsed crafty stuff in ages and I got sidetracked.

I looked up and saw droves of humans.
It was like a weird social experiment.

Some humans trying to avoid other humans. Some humans standing with masks on chins chatting. Some with masks on properly chatting. Others with their noses poking out and glaring at others.

And some humans just ignoring everyone around them.

I got the heck out of there but felt queasy standing in line waiting for a check out station.

I used to have a rule of Never shopping on a Saturday. Damn. I won't break that rule again for ages!

I like doing still life photography but got a bit bored with the choice of layouts. I picked up some paper to use as a back drop. I'd seen an ad for Replica Surfaces and I thought ... Wow great! I could use those!

Yeah. Until I saw the price tag. I searched around and in some cases other surfaces just like that were up to $69 for one foam board with a pattern on it!

So my side trip into the craft section netted me this. Craft paper with patterns on it.

Cell phone photos. The first two are lay flat and terrible lighting. I did those while cooking. The last one is a patterned paper on the bottom and one sheet taped to a board for the back.

The items have to be tiny as the paper is only 12" by 12". 

Well, $5 is better than $69 right? I have about 20 different colors and patterns to use. Now let's see if I can get creative.

Toys

When I am at loss as to what to photograph next, I often try to do some Still Life. I even once signed up for a class and did some really amazing stuff. I mean neato stuff that looked like it came from a magazine kind of stuff.

But I lost interest in positioning coffee cups, spoons, and fruit. It was just stuff. The learning part was interesting. I learned how to 'set' things up for a backround. I learned to do it with a cheap paper - the kind used for making scrap books. I used old felt to make black back drops and a white sheet for white ones. I used poster board to reflect light and a window for natural lighting.

I lusted after things like a 'soft box' and neat lighting. I built my own 'soft box' out of cardboard. I discovered that a light tea towel would diffuse enough light from a desk lamp to act like an expensive studio light.

Toys.

Over the years kids have donated toys to me to take out into the woods and have adventures with. 

The set up above is one of those easy peasy set ups. I grabbed some of the discarded toys and lined them up. I taped some paper together for the backround.

The photo below turned out as expected. However, it was bland and uninteresting. That creepy doll was not connecting with me.

The shot I'd done before however...did impact me when I looked at it much closer.

She just is creepy!

Those freaky eyes!

Exactly what I wanted.

I swept the toys to the side and piled them on a sheet of scrap book paper.

Ewwww.

Those eyes!

While doing that, I opened up my husband's big old trunk and took out his childhood teddy bears. 

I stuck the large one in the old busted up Christmas chair and put it in the bright afternoon sunlight.

Rich was delighted to see his big brown bear and extolled its virtues. 

Um.

Yucky looking bear. 

And then he reminded me that this bear was probably 60 years old.

I'm going with a certain 'Creepitude' with this Bear. 

I pulled out his other bear and an old book.

More fond memories and discussion ensued.

I put my Bear with his bear and they seemed to get along okay.

However the old bear didn't seem to have much to say.

It seemed he was rather wide eyed and startled at being out of the trunk after so 

many years of being stored.

End note.

Most of these toys have a story behind them. The Barbie doll head was given to me by my youngest grand daughter when she was about 3 yrs old. She kept the headless body I think.

Other parts and pieces were given to me by the neighbor kids. They all have a back story of some sort.

That creepy baby with the bottle. The one single Barbie shoe. The Zombie doll.

Lego people in various stages of disarray. 

An interview I read with Dan Leonard really hit home.

#WithToysInMind is a project he created with his own personal mental health in mind. It is a creative escape to deal with emotions.

I didn't even realize that I was doing this.

Bear and I is how I deal with loneliness.

Rabbit and Bear is how I used photography to deal my husband's desperate and deep bouts of depression.

So.

Playing with toys is a good thing.

Creativity in any form is good for the mind.