Kokeshi Family 1

OK, so these Kokeshi dolls have made their way into my Japanese heart…  I particularly liked the layout of this display, so I thought I’d photograph it.

My Goal: To capture this display “as lifelike” as possible.  To get the color, proportion, and “feel” as close to the real thing as possible.  So, the first choice was the 50mmL.  The whole idea behind the 50, is “What you see is what you get,” right ?  Well, it turns out the best pic was taken with the 100mm macro:

Here’s another, closer up, and cropped of course.  So, well, these pictures go back to my #5 rule of non-ameteur photography: The more perfect your pictures are, the more perfect they have to be.  Which leads to the sub-rule to #5:  If you want to take REALLY good pictures, you can’t be lazy!  And of course, it goes back to background and lighting.  I was too lazy to do a real setup for these, so the pictures just came out “OK,” meaning they show the subject clearly.

OK, OK, enough of the realism, and accuracy.  How about taking some more dramatic, interesting, and creative shots!

I love these following 3 pictures.  Seems this is more my style!  Hope you enjoy as well!

Finally, this charming shot of “Boxee” of the perch, and up close to the camera!

Toy Photo Inspiration

OK, so here’s my inspiration. Georgie and I were at the store the other day, and we came across this book, called Art-Toys, which features photographs of toys set against real-world backgrounds.

It was my call to action.  It’s a combining of many things for me:

1) macro/still life photography

2) Spurring the use of Creativity, Imagination, and Vision

3) Technical skill / Experimentation

4) Love of toys and JPop

Here’s a few images from the book, (taken without permission of the author):

source:

http://www.mccartyphotoworks.com/portfolio.html

Journey Into Paper — JPop Monsters

OK, so I was at MUNKY KING on Melrose avenue, and amongst other cool trendy stuff, they had a Paper Monster book.  Well, I was inspired by the “JPop” nature of the monsters, but also, because the photography within the book itself was pretty bad.  So I decided to try my hand at it…

So for the first try, the monster didn’t inspire any great photographic effect, but it’s construction was simple, so I decided to experiment with it first.

Here’s what I came up with:

LA Market in the JW Marriot Hotel at LA Live

Dramatic background with a gobo… (it’s the sheet music holder for my keyboard!)

Colored Backgrounds… Finally!!

Color Splash: A wall painting in San Diego

Saw this picture painted on a wall while I was walking around North Park.

What was striking to me is how the painter used these particular colors to convey

the scary/thrilling mood.

The impressive color was captured handheld with the magnificent Canon 50mm 1.2 L.

First shots with the new AlienBees b400!

Man, talk about quality of light!  For a tiny little package, this thing puts out perfect light!  Can’t wait to do some people shots with this thing!

Anyway, all these were taken with the new 50mm… AMAZING bokeh, and AMAZING COLOR!  Notice the deep blues, deep reds, bright yellow, and green and orange accents… Wow, this lens is FANTASTIC!

Wow… the new 50 is bringing toys to life!

More from the 50… Is this the ultimate -toy- lens ?!?? Time Will tell!