Angry Birds and Camp Wanahlegoh.

My Thanksgiving events started this weekend, so it was a busy two days filled with family fun.  Ah the memories made amidst ham, potatoes, cheesecake, wine,and trains and Legos. 

Trains and Legos you wonder...  Well, the local model train show was this weekend and I have a number of young nephews and nieces who have a blast looking at all the train stuff - although admittedly the adults have just as much fun.  One of the most spectacular displays at the train show is the Lego display.  Yes, it has a Lego train, but there is also an entire city of Legos complete with Camp Wanahlegoh, a lego bank, a lego greenhouse, and more.  So cool.)

Once I got home, after relaxing for a bit in front of the TV and watching Brave, I pulled out my camera for a short session.  I was looking around for inspiration and my Angry Bird characters caught my eye.  I suspect there is a story coming eventually surrounding these guys, but here was tonight's best photo - courtesy of my Lensbaby Plastic Optic.

Can you see the fear in the pig's eye?  He's toast!

Oh, and here is Camp Wanahlegoh if you're curious.  It's a camera phone shot so the quality isn't the best.  But if you look closely you might be able to see one of the Lego men on the zip line.  (He's right above the leftmost black tent.)  Awesome!

See on,
Julee

Eggs.

Tonight I hope to make you giggle just a bit. 

DPChallenge had a challenge with the theme of 'eleven'.   I was trying to be creative and come up with an interesting idea for how to shoot a photo of 'eleven'.  I was able to go back to old challenges to see what kind of things other folks have done with number challenges and there was everything from photos of the number to photos of that number of items.  (Like for a 'four' challenge folks would photograph four birds, or an address with a '4' in it.)

Lots of the DPC folks are amazing photographers, and much further along in their skill development that me, but that doesn't mean I can't be creative and have fun.  So my goal was to come up with something where the 'eleven' was an integral part of the idea, rather than just photographing 11 gumdrops.

I really did not have much luck in the creativity department except for one genius idea.  (At least I'm pretty proud of it).  I photographed eggs.  Oh yes, I know there are twelve eggs in a package - but that's where my creative twist came in.

I photographed 11 white eggs with one brown egg.  So I had my full dozen eggs, but just 11 that were the same.   The second shot is my actual entry, the colors are much better, but I got this awesome chicken suit Lego man this afternoon and had to throw him in one of the photos.

I also tried having one of the eggs being a broken egg, but I did not like that quite as well.  The perspectives (slight angle) was just better in the other photo.

And wouldn't you know it, this photo is getting me my highest score yet.  (Not really high mind you, but high for me.)

Light is proving to be an incredible challenge.  I am going to work on mastering it, but I suspect it'll take months to get a handle.  Notice how my second two shots have a much whiter background that my shot with the Lego man.  Granted, I was shooting really quickly this afternoon to get something with Lego guy in it, but I used the same lighting from last weekend with the other egg shots.  The only difference was that I had my foam core boards behind the eggs tonight rather than just white paper.  The foam board is taller so maybe blocked more of the room lighting?  I don't know.  Between getting the color of the background pretty, getting the shadows right, and figuring out the whole reflection issue - I've got plenty to learn.  (My book on lighting arrives tomorrow - so I am on it!)

See on,
Julee