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Galactic Warming

Last year I acquired a Lego Wampa specifically for shooting outside in the coming winter snows… but the snow never came. It wasn’t till the following February that we actually got a bit of snow.

So I had to be creative. I was itching to shoot the Wampa and since the weather wasn’t cooperating I created a storyline called the Hoth Heat Wave. This storyline has since branched in many ways including a Snowtrooper Unit that has been stranded on the surface because all the ice melt has created a thick cloudy atmosphere that thwarts interstellar communications.

Special Forces Snowtrooper Unit SSF3298 works together to scale the massive cliffs that have been uncovered from the ice…

I recently acquired a Hasbro forcelink Wampa and it has spurred more Galactic Warming shots. The snow is all but gone and has turned Hoth into a swampy wet mess.

Such a Swampa mess!

This past weekend I took a group of scout out to the Arizona Strip on a campout. We hiked the next morning to what is known as the Glitter Pit. It is an active gypsum mine that is in the form of Selenite crystals. The selenite crystals are nature’s form of glass and you can actually see through the rock fairly easily.

Home Sweet Home

When I was younger I remember going down into this selenite mine and being able to see into the ground three to four feet. It was mesmerizing as the depth of the stone slowly changed from clear to blue to blackness. Utilizing an Estwing prospector pick, I could chisel a good 10-12″ slab out of the ground. Nowadays so many folks have visited this site that it has been transformed into somewhat of a tourist trap. The surface has been hacked at so much that now it’s just a white cloudy mess. Which is perfect for a Wampa Cave!

Wampa made it out just in time…

I had a volunteer scout to drop handfuls of gypsum powder over my new Hasbro forcelink Wampa. It was nearly noon and the sky was clear and blue and reflected so much light that I had to use my neutral density filter applied to my Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 lens to even get any shots. This ND filter darkened it quite a bit but I ended up utilizing my Litra Gear LitraTorch to add a few opposing highlights on Wampas legs. The contrast was a bit overwhelming and I lost a lot of my detail in the shadows so the LitraTorch was indispensable in bringing out those details.

Wampa Snow cave collapsing…

It took quite a few tries to get the “snow” captured just right. The other scout leaders watched from a distance as I pulled out my toys and worked my magic. The scouts were quite gung-ho about helping and because of them it turned out awesome!

As I was finishing up a few cars pulled up and out came some families with little kids to explore the Glitter Pit.

The Galactic Warming will continue as I find new ways to incorporate the heat into the Hoth landscapes – and I’m actually dreading snow this winter season!

All the water released from the Hoth Heat Wave has resulted in enormous plants…
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Nexus Shift

I have recently had the opportunity to purchase and use the LitraTorch by Litra Gear. I love this light for toy photography. It’s such a great portable size and the perfect amount of light for fill even during direct sunlight.

Doctor Phlox sees a strange light near the surface. SOOC photo.

I was rummaging through my closet the other day and I randomly found this Doctor Phlox figure that I purchased as an impulse buy from a thrift store a few years back – not sure why I hadn’t used it in a shot yet. I think it’s because a few years ago I was on a Lego minifigure binge. I still am, but I’m now venturing into bigger toy territory too.

The shot above of Phlox was taken on my car dash in direct sunlight with my Voigtlander 25mm f0.95 wide open. I use a ND filter to make this possible. I used the LitraTorch on high as a fill light in the front. Sunlight is behind Phlox.

I have always loved space and consider myself a Trekkie. I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, almost every Saturday. I’m sorry, but William Shatner as Captain Kirk doesn’t hold a candle to Picard. That being said, I am an even bigger fan of the reboot with J.J. Abrams. I just love the lens flares and the light in his films.

The light in the distance… do you see it!?

After messing around with the LitraTorch as a fill light I have realized what I have been missing. I have never achieved shots like this in direct sunlight. I’ve always had way too much contrast with such a bright background that all the details are in the dark in front. I end up with a silhouette of sorts rather than what I was really going for and I guess I just accepted that as a fact of circumstance. I would just adjust the blacks in Lightroom or something; but that option has drawbacks producing some weird digital artifacts sometimes.

Well, I was wrong. There is a better way – a nice powerful mini light studio!

What is it’s power source…?

There are quite a few toy photographers that I always return to for inspiration and one of them is Janan Lee aka @spideygoeshygge on Instagram. He has these mesmerizing spaceman shoots that have such great lighting. When I found Phlox I threw him in my camera bag for a shot if the opportunity arose and I wanted to emulate the feels of Janans shots.

The op came while we were running some quick errands. I was staying with the kiddos in the car while my wife went into the store to find a Halloween costume. It was a bright sunny day today and surprisingly pleasant at 72 degrees. My dash became my studio. I kept the frame tight and angled up toward the sky so I would avoid all the reflections from cars and buildings and such and the dash was transformed into another world… a world that would eventually parallel the Star Trek: Generations film with entering into a version of the Nexus Ribbon.

A bit of Enlight app magic and I combined two shots into the main shot on this post.

After these shots I busted out some heavy artillery: The beauty of the orange plastic Halloween Pumpkin Pail. $1 @ Walmart. (Not sure why I included this link – I guess it’s a bit funny for me, and it’s late when I’m writing this…)

Turned out to be quite the epic light when paired with my dash sunlight, some fancy balancing acts, and the LitraTorch as a front fill.

Doctor Phlox was transported through the Nexus Ribbon into some sort of fiery orange dimension.

As you can see from these shots – a nice studio setup is really not needed for toy photography. I love the portability of it all. The LitraTorch fits easily in my small camera bag with a few toys and lenses. I love how I can incorporate so many plain ordinary everyday objects and generate a completely new world; that right there my friends is why I do toy photography.

~ Joecow

What kind of random things do you use in your shots? Have you ever considered portable lighting solutions? What has worked for you?

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Haunted Woods – BTS

When I was visiting Brighton for my cousins wedding there was a bit of downtime before and I went on a hike around Silver Lake. The forest on the east side is quite old with tall trees and roots reaching for the waters edge.

The other duck got spooked

There were pockets and holes throughout that were probably made by badgers or other animals. I knew when I saw this spot I had to shoot some toys here. I had brought my small camera bag (the LowePro Flipside 200). It fits both my cameras (Canon M & Olympus OMD EM5), and a few lenses as well as a small pouch of Lego and some bigger figures.

I balanced my stormtrooper; but a small gust of wind unseated him and he fell deep into this particular badger hole. It was beyond arms length and the entrance was full of cobwebs. I was peeved for a bit but then went to work looking for a long stick.

When this happened I had bumped my bag and four of my OMD batteries fell out. I didn’t think much of it because of the emergency.

I reached with a long branch and was able to scrape the figure up to a more easily accessible position. I cleaned out the cobwebs best I could and reached my full length of arm and could barely touch the figure. It was all rather frustrating as I was in a hurry to get to back to the wedding.

Right before TeeKay fell into this trap

I finally grabbed him and luckily he had all his limbs and blaster. I packed up my things and raced back through the forest to the lodge where the wedding was being held. While shooting some shots of her wedding my camera died and I went to swap batteries… gone. No batteries!?

I love an intricate cobweb

I waited till after the wedding and festivities and when the music got loud and decided to drop out and go on a battery hunt. I traced my steps back to this awesome but treacherous spot being careful not to plant my leg into one of these hole traps. I got back to this exact hole and the batteries were nowhere to be seen. I’m guessing either somebody thought they were garbage and cleaned them up or some mischievous creature walked away with $60 in batteries. Maybe it was an R.O.U.S?

Many creatures watching

Needless to say I was not too happy. I had one other battery in my suitcase that I used sparingly the rest of the trip. I learned a good lesson though – do not keep all your batteries in one basket. Keep some spares somewhere out of your current gear.

Anyhow – I am very pleased with the shots I acquired and more batteries are on the way from Amazon.

~Joecow

Have you ever lost photography equipment? What’s the most dangerous shot you’ve done with toys? Would you reach your arm into a black hole? If you like my posts take a moment and leave me some of your thoughts. Thanks!

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Wampa and Exploding Cat-tails

Yes it’s a rather random correlation but that’s how most of my photography happens. On Friday night my wife and I went on a date and as part of it we went shopping. When you’ve got five kiddos, any time alone together is a great time – even just shopping.

We went to the toy aisles at Walmart because I always like to peruse the aisles and see if they have anything that’ll look good in a toy photo.

They had some Lego Harry Potter minifigures (finally), but they had been picked through quite a bit. I spent some time looking for a niffler with no such luck. I did get Harry Potter with his Owl because those Lego owls are epic; and it’s white so perfect for coming wintertime shots.

I found the Star Wars Force Link 2.0 Wampa and Luke Skywalker (Hoth) Figure and bought it for the Wampa. There are some iconic characters that just work so well in photography and the Wampa is one such icon. I have the Lego Wampa, but I wanted to have something a bit more articulated for this winter season. I also wanted to tie in this new Wampa figure to my Hoth Heat Wave series.

Saturday morning Wampa joined us for breakfast and had a strange fascination with the butter. He followed it all the way to a more comfortable spot… out fridge!

After an excellent breakfast we ran some errands and went to what we call the spin park; it’s a city park that has a bunch of different spinning contraptions that the kids have a blast on. They also have a section of the park that is a drainage area that has turned into a small marsh with cattails and everything.

I went tromping through the cattails and found such a cool ecosystem. There were ladybugs galore and many spiders and wasps and such. I took quite a few shots of insects and then decided the spot would be perfect for a muddy Hoth. So out came Wampa! It was a bit tricky getting around as the ground was rather unstable and mucky. There were some stepping stones so it was a balancing act to get down low enough to shoot the Wampa.

After some tricky footwork and a few shots I whipped out my pocket knife and cut some cattails for my kiddos to play with. My youngest son Clark got the first one and he whacked it on the ground and to our amazement it exploded into a huge puff of seeds! I had no idea cattails did that…

So the rest of the morning was spent collecting and exploding cattails. I also took a few shots of the Wampa in the exploded seed clouds. It sort of looked like snow and matched my Hoth Heat Wave theme.

This is usually how my toy photography workflow happens. I just get with some toys and explore. The randomness leads to some pretty creative and epic shots. I don’t always plan for shoots but when I do the shots seem a bit more forced; I like this go with the flow way of things.

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Cold Snap

Winter is coming! I actually really love the changing seasons – we once lived down in Mesa, Arizona and I missed the fall and winter that we experience here in Cedar City, Utah each year. Each season brings new colors and challenges to my photography.

This past week we have experienced our first cold snap of the fall/winter season. It got far below freezing. I like this transitional time as many folks tend to leave sprinklers on overnight and the ice sculptures that are made are perfect winter scenes for my toy photography. It can get rather cold and uncomfortable while shooting toys outside durning these times; but the strange things is I don’t even realize that my knees are going numb. I just get so engrossed in the creative process that everything else is forgotten.

I work at an engineering firm which is located in the outskirts of Cedar. The office is surrounded by expansive fields of alfalfa (hay). Yesterday on my way to work I was passing through the fields and the farmers had left their sprinkler pivots on. It was a beautiful sight – the barbed wire fences and grass of the fields were iced over.

Naturally I had to stop and take some toy photos. Woody matched the scene perfectly and I attempted to recreate a shot I did a couple years ago of Woody tightroping on barbed-wire. Unfortunately, the sun had been up for some time and had already warmed the wire and ground enough that the ice was starting to fall off in chunks. It was a race against time! The ground was also thawing which meant messiness – plus I was in a hurry and late for work; so the shot ended up being woody just sitting on the wire. Maybe next time, if there is a next time – icy barbed-wire doesn’t happen too often.

I also had Miguel from Pixar’s Coco and a certain stormtrooper with me.

I used to stop and just take macro shots of a scene like this but now it looks rather boring without a toy in the shot. I still do non toy shots in circumstances like this but having a toy to experience it at their level just adds something to the shot.

I was late to work after these shots but luckily we are all pretty laid back there. The beauty of toy photography is the ability to transform the mundane into another world!

If you’ve made it this far reading my ramblings I’d love to hear some feedback here on my blog.

~ Joseph

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R.O.U.S.s

So I obtained a Rizzo figure from Muppet Treasure Island the other day – Thank you to Palisades Toy (Defunct 2006).

Rizzo in the rain

The articulation and detail in their muppet figures is fantastic and the Toy Photographer Mitchel Wu pointed me in the right direction. He has all these awesome shots with Kermit and water and Indiana Jones – a perfect mashup!

I love the creativity in the toy photography niche and it really opens up the imagination to infinite possibilities.

I had the opportunity during the busy month of September to attend my cousins wedding up in Brighton, Utah. It was located at a secluded cabin in the tops of the Wasatch Mountains. It was such a beautiful location. Surrounded by large pines and mossy mountain streams flowing ice cold waters over granite stones.

I of course brought many toys with me. I never leave the house without my camera and some toys packed away in my bag. I had a random assortment of figures and went off during some downtime after we helped setup a lot of the decorations.

My cousin and her now husband
Such a beautiful place for a wedding – I am so happy for her!

I took out my Revoltech Stormtrooper because hey, it’s a stormtrooper and pretty much fits in anywhere! Then the idea of him stumbling across a giant rodent (Rizzo) popped into my head… random, yes. I find most my inspiration comes in the moment and is not planned out very well. For some reason when I plan a grand shot in my head I can never really obtain it exactly how I pictured – it tend to fall flat a bit. So I go for in the moment fleeting shoots.

R.O.U.S.s!?

The Princess Bride was one of my favorite quotable movies as a kid and the Rodents Of Unusual Size scared the tar out of me! Obviously rodents on earth do not get so large but in a galaxy far, far away anything is possible.

Star Wars, Return of the Jedi came out a year before I was born but Princess Bride came out when I was three. I figure it could just as easily be another princess story offshoot in the Star Wars universe!