Behold! Skeletor!
In preparation of this weeks My Camera Bag post I had begun to take some indoor, light-tent based, photos. The post will be about three particular lenses that have a "macro" function on them, which really means "near focus," or "close up." The pictures I was taking, in particular, were of a small - really small - toy I received for Christmas: a 1 inch tall Skeletor.
Really. Skeletor. 1 inch.
I had taken this picture, in particular:
What I like about this picture is that Skeletor looks like he's something taller than 1 inch (really, that is what macro photography is all about). But there was something missing, and I couldn't quite figure out what it was: it was certainly Skeletor, with a dark black background portraying his soul. The focus is all on his badness, yet I wasn't quite happy. So I played around a little with some different angles and distances and ended up with this...
... and this ...
... and neither of them were quite right.
And then it hit me. @bil.prag had this great post here with what I thought was a fantastic background, and I recalled him mentioning to me how he used a laptop for the background. That's what I needed! An active background.
A rejiggered set up later gave me this. Neat, but the lighting wasn't quite right.
I was looking for Skeletor to have already emerged from the shadow's, not still be enveloped by them. Luckily I use a three light configuration for my lightbox photography, so it was easy to move one of the lights to face the bad-man at a 45 degree angle. Voila! Behold! Skeletor! Striding out of the chaos laid in his wake, and ready to do battle with that do-gooder He-Man.
And yes, he really is only 1 inch tall. Here is my setup.
(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe
About Me
Amateur photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd.
General all around problem-solver and creative type.
My Favourite Tags
| #spaceforce3 | #altphoto | #crappycameraphotos |
| #digitalpinhole | #pinhole | #firehydrant |
Awesome photos and I see some good tips there. Thank you for sharing. 😊
Thanks so much @dkkarolien! Great to see you again!
you could have even go with a "green screen" background from the show :D
totally unrelated fact. i have 2 memories of nightmares as a kid. one was Skeletor and second (as i found out when westworld series started) was the "robot" from the original westworld movie. no idea how i managed to watch that as a kid :)
Oh geez, for me it was the androids in the Six Million Dollar Man/Woman episodes.
These still give me the heebiejeebies!
i can see why :D
Great set up and so lovely to show us your toys hahahah shows your softside
Hee! Thanks! I broke down and spent the $5 necessary to order the 1 inch He-Man equivalent!
Still surprised that he is only 1 inch tall, given the detail of the picture! And I was chuckling thinking of the ....many hours I had watched with my son when he was younger! Thanks for showing us your process.
I'm really quite impressed with the level of detail in that, though his mouth looks like it has been sewn shut. That's one way to get him to shut up!
That looks a lot like some cheap Zerbos minis I acquired a long while back. Mine were all DC superheroes, Power Rangers, and soldiers, though.
I have a couple boxes of toys, mostly cheap, that I like to use as photography props. If nothing else, at least they don't complain at me like my children do!