Playing with the lighting of toys

Well, here are a few different trys at lighting toys.

The guy at Bongo's Tattoo parlor wouldn't give Barbie a tat. Said it was too time consuming. I wanted a 'Born to be Wild' inking but he just wasn't that in to her. Damn.

I have a lot of other poses of her with different lighting and another Barbie doll but I'm afrain that Google might give me the boot. Literally.

Sorry about the cliche Christmas village scene. David has been collecting those little porcelain pieces for years. He was pulling for the little guys to be in the shoot.

There is not a tableau that goes into great detail but I did try all kinds of different ways to light each set of toys. If the lights ever go out, I am set. There are 6 different flash lights in varying sizes on the table. One flashlight has plastic colored pieces to go over it if I ever need red, yellow or blue gels.

All things considered, I probably spent about 20 hours on this project. There are about 600-700 shots in this week's file.

Doll Face

This little red headed step-child of a doll just fascinated me in that there is no position where she looks directly into the camera. Who ever painted her eyes made them so that she is always looking slightly away.









It certainly has occured to me that I am venturing away from the assignment of creating a tableau. These dolls just seemed like they were waiting in line to get their portrait taken!














This music box dancer looks so out of place at the ball. Her awkward stance made me think of the girl who probably would never be asked for the next dance.

Playing with cowboys and army guys

OMG, have I had fun today playing with other people's toys.

My son Stephen, a former Army Ranger, and his girlfriend Rhonda came over this afternoon and he put together the army tableau for me. They both held the flashlights to help me light the scene and take some pictures. How often does a mother get to play army with her 30 year old son?


Learning how to light the cowboy and his horse was an experience. It took me 4 hours and 5 different lights to determine that the size of the light worked better when it was scaled to the size of the toy. Obviously, I'm a slow learner.


I have about 5 other 'scenes' ready to photograph. Sure wish I didn't have to stop and cook supper. It would be so much more fun to play!

Little bitty tourists

and a duck pond too!

I know these do not quite fit our tableau assignment but I thought I'd share them anyway!

Layered Modulated Light with Assignments

Let me tell you up front that I do not know how to layer in PhotoShop. Nevertheless, I decided to try and layer my modulated light images with my studio light images to see what I could come up with in the merging. There are definitely no award winners but I tried my best.

Natures way of modulating light

The sun, the great naked lamp in the sky.

Trees, natures way of modulating light.

On the street

with Bill Cunningham

I hesitate to even bring this up. My fear is that Vaughn will read this and then make us do a video blog. That said, take a look at On the Street Views by Bill Cunningham who documents the people who may be the real stars of New York Fashion Week: the guests. Cunningham’s comments are a real hoot! The music adds a comic interest as well.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/18/style/1248069050418/on-the-street-views.html?ref=multimedia

While doing a little follow up on who Bill Cunningham is exactly in relation to the New York Times, I found that he has been a photographer for over 50 years! The first picture he took of someone on the streets of New York was a picture of Greta Garbo. The cut and the quality of her coat caught his attention. The quality and interest in the subject of his picture caught an editor’s eye. The rest is history as they say. His first pictures were of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, the king and queen of Spain, a Kennedy in a fox coat. I doubt he thought his first pictures of people on the streets of New York would lead him into a 50-year career of photography!

His words: “I go out every day. When I get depressed at the office, I go out, and as soon as I'm on the street and see people, I feel better. But I never go out with a preconceived idea. I let the street speak to me.”

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res

Glass Lights

Our particular challenge in this lighting assignment was to make a glass of water interesting using a variety of techniques.









From this point forward, when I see a glass of water in a magazine or in an ad, I will have a whole new appreciation for the skill of that particular photographer.








I think I need some private tutoring lessons on lighting a simple glass of water.

Modulated light

On White Paper

This assignment was most interesting. I tried all kinds of things to modulate light. Who would have ever thought I'd be using liquor bottles, broken mirrors, scraps of lace, a waste paper basket and old architect templates to vary light on white paper in order to make a different image? Only in Vaughn's class!

In the words of Mr. Wascovich, " Modulation- In electronics, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a high frequency periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with respect to a modulating signal. This is done in a similar fashion as a musician may modulate a tone (a periodic waveform) from a musical instrument by varying its volume, timing and pitch. The three key parameters of a periodic waveform are its amplitude ("volume"), its phase ("timing") and its frequency ("pitch"), all of which can be modified in accordance with a low frequency signal to obtain the modulated signal. "

Next, my plan is to take these modulated images of light and layer them into my other product pieces to create a new and interesting image.

Pictures of paper

I must say that now I look at toilet paper in a whole new light!

Types of paper used:
1. Regular typing paper
2. Resume paper
3. Toilet paper
4. Paper napkin
5. Piece of paper in a book