A bit of fun

Just goofing around.

When the temps get way below zero and the winds are blowing, I do stay inside and mess around with photography experiments and make a mess.

I check in on a photographer who does 'macro' work indoors when the weather is nasty. He has some extremely creative ideas and he explores them.

He used a piece of cotton [like thick cotton balls] glued to a popsicle frame he made. He put a small hole in the middle of it and shot his flower shots through the cotton.

I thought this was interesting so I grabbed an old picture frame and did something similar with felt and bubble wrap.

I set things up on the table and then used a colored light to bounce of my background made out of tin foil.

Of course there were quite a few shots that didn't turn out as I would have liked, but then I kept experimenting. These were tiny dried flowers for crafting.

Finally I got one I could live with. 

I didn't have to do any editing for this shot as 'shooting' through the torn cotton gave the edges a soft hazy look. I thought I'd try it again and do a Lego Minifigure portrait.

Here are two samples. In the first you can see the foil background that creates a cool pattern behind this Dnd minifig. Her name is Lady of Pain. 

This second shot is with more of the cotton in the way and the lens slight pulled back. I also stood her on a Lego brick that lights up red to highlight her from inside. This shot almost looks as if she has cold air circulating around her or a mist of some sort.

What the set up looked like. 

What my table looked like on our first subzero day:

I had three sets of scenes built. My $1 dinosaur fit into a storyline I'd was creating for a series on Flickr.

The Queen of Pain sent her Zombie Emissary to the Minibots and spoke to Iggy [the minibot with one eye]. She wished to have a custom Ferrari built for her.

Iggy can usually get anything or steal it so he agreed to get a red Ferrari for her.

They got parts but had no idea how to put things together. Todd, the maintenance guy offered to help.

Since Iggy and his Minibots were taking too much time to do this. The Lady of Pain sent her messenger to Iggy to tell him to hurry up. Pretty nasty threat, I'd say!

[Don't worry, no toys were actually harmed in this photoshoot]

I guess all they had to do was ask Todd the Zombie Maintenance guy to help out.

It seemed Todd took it upon himself to help out the Minibots. He called in a couple of Zombie friends....they worked all through the night sorting and building.

I guess if you want a job done quickly and correctly, you hire Zombies. After all, they don't sleep and apparently their work ethic is fantastic.

Hopefully the Lady of Pain will enjoy her new ride.

Yippee! It is the Polar Plunge!

 

 

More UnTree

What on earth are YOU talking about? NO one does Christmas without a Christmas tree right?

Well I'm sure there are folks who do!

I'm just looking for something different and fun.

I don't know exactly where to start, so I'll just start with what caught my eye as I was twiddling my thumbs.

Last year I took some time to wander around the Walmart clearance section. I saw a lot of Teddy Bears lined up on shelves. One had only one eye.

It wasn't something I was looking for. But I drove home with my list filled up and the thought of that Pink One Eyed Teddy Bear kept coming back to me.

I have no idea why.
I needed to pick something up the next day. Most of the Bears were gone. The one eyed bear was pushed to the side. I was so relieved for some reason and stuck it in my basket. At the check out one of the lady's pointed out that this Teddy was defective, did I really want it?
I smiled and said that I was positive I wanted just as it was.

Welcome Pink Teddy with one eye in one of my crates. She has gold ribbons, beads, and a very festive and vintage handkerchief around her neck. She looks happy. The kerchief is actually one of my Grandmother Pearl's fancy handkerchiefs.  I put this together and sat back. Grandma's 'kerchief' and the Teddy Bear no one wanted. Beautiful. I knew this Bear had some sort of purpose!

The next box has some of my 'toys' that I like to take on hikes. I know, but it is fun to find odd places to put Teddy Bears and other toys.

These were Thrift Shop toys. Toys from the back room that had fallen between other toy piles.
I had picked them up and held on to them for a long time. They appealed to me in a way so I brought them home.

Oh look. 3 little bears! And then there is Rabbit and Bear! I bet you are wondering how I got those two beany bears to stand. Hah. Not telling my secrets.

Another item under construction. These are... twig trees with little red light up ornaments. They are not super bright. I used floral foam blocks inside the old sewing drawer to stick them in and then a bag of glass marble like fillers to hold it all in place. The checker board is topping a crate. It was an old handpainted checkerboard piece that hung in my MIL's apartment.

Hopefully this isn't boring anyone.

Here is a look at the whole 'display'...which has already been changed up a bit since I took the photo yesterday.

Note the Gnome with the Skunk Hat! A wonderful young lady who is the DIL of my MIL's sister...okay yeah...that was an odd way of describing her....

...she makes these! She calls them Nisse.
Pretty neat right?

Stay tuned. More to come from the boxes and then I move on to some other fun items.
A story behind most every one with a beautiful memory.

In the works, Still life/Night Life

This is where I work. I decided to try a pretty cool thing that comes with the Olympus OMD E M5 camera. Live Time.  So I used a little tripod and pushed the button and...watched the photo appear on the screen.
Way cool.
I added some star specks and the little moon. Original is below.

This is a dam on the Mississippi River taken from a wayside.

Meanwhile I thought I needed a do over of some rose petals and rings. That didn't turn out so well so I went to plan B.

I did another ring instead and it looks like I'll have to redo this one also.

I blew the whites but I'm getting closer to what I want. I'll have to get another batch of flowers with roses in them. But, not until after Valentine's Day. They will be too expensive right now.

Well I decided to move on and try some other things.

Here I am doing the thinking pose while I toss around some ideas in my head.

I grab some items together. A vintage ruler, an old pitcher that I picked up from a flea market, a white rug, a ruler with advertising on it from the 1930's, and some flowers that were past their due date.

Fred would be very happy I think. Fred Flatow that is. I think that was his calling card in the 30's. On the flip side is a handy little ruler. Pretty neat right?

Finally I get something I am happy with. For fun I tossed the Lego Man into the coffee in the cup, along with a flower.
And I liked it better than any other shot I'd taken today.

And thus was born the Lego Man in the coffee.

I finished off the photo 'shoot' with two last items.

I wanted to go out and shoot the cropland and the icy sculptures in the moon light but alas.
The clouds have moved in.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I get out to do some more night photography soon.

Photos developed in ON1RAW2017.