| It’s been a while since I did focus on putting together a mini-project that has something to do with Toy Photography as most of the time I spent using most of the composition for content use as part of a review article or reinventing the concept as an improvisation challenge personally to myself in my usual content for social media. I’ve been out of the game for far too long just taking it lightly.
But recently I also haven’t done anything that needs setting up indoors to put together. Honestly, I have enough backlogs to write about some for content though this time it’s just something I want to do differently than a conventional run-in-the-mill outdoor composition that has become a routine. Also, I got to acquire some of the most recent LEGO Minifigures that includes DC’s Stargirl from that series. |
I’ve been thinking about the indoor set up for this particular shoot though it’s not like the ones you see on social media that have more elaborate details, enough to put a composition that I had planned for almost a week now. Usually, I’d take the Minifigure outdoors and find suitable terrain that would work for the character to blend in as its own environment, and yet I did that earlier this morning.
But I wasn’t satisfied and the photos were taken early this morning are just back up in case if the photoshoot indoors did not push through. It was good that it happened to bar very limited lighting in the room I had to find artificial light aside from the usual desk lamp that sits beside my computer.
A few days earlier I was also rummaging from the storage and dig out the unused Christmas tree and found that aside from the tree itself the ornaments and other decorations are also in the old box. I also found that the Christmas lights bundled with this tree are the not conventional ones that remind me of those colorful and chewy gummy bears, but instead of their animal shape, they came in the silhouette of the tree.
The idea for the use of background had been lingering in my thoughts using one of the storage crates as the main venue for the Minifigure was good enough since it has holes in the background prior to testing shooting I find it too bright with the desk lamp. Setting up the tree lights surrounding the subject was one of the first few shot attempts in seeing if the illumination would work.
The objective here is capturing Stargirl flying towards the image and minimal use of digital manipulation trying to take the photo with a different angle not to capture the flight stand. Speaking or the stand, the new piece that came with the Minifigure works quite well to flying characters like Wonder Woman or Superman, and of course Stargirl. The goal was not much on seeing her levitate in the final composition, but to see the Cosmic Staff she’s using as one of the highlights of the image. Since I no longer use a DSLR camera I rely now on my mobile phone. I’m not familiar with how the iPhone XR would capture the subject in low light, but I know it’s more sophisticated than the previous iPhone 5s I’ve been using for the past two to three years while I was down in South Oz.
Interestingly enough the outcome of the photos would still come out amateur-istic without much fanfare as the idea is to highlight the character’s abilities and just about putting together something different from the usual toy shoot outdoors. I’ve been trying to limit that due to that there’s still the pandemic looming outside.
You can find the image reference behind the scenes as you can see I don’t rely upon many camera stands or mobile clips as I take some angle shots that would avoid capturing the flight stand or even the part that connects the subject to the base. This is most common to those who are still in the process of learning the concepts of Toy Photography as I’ve been doing this for so long that there are techniques in capturing the subject without the need for digital manipulation to erase the base or stand that keeps the subject being hindered to doing some action pose.
The overall composition I find satisfying, but there’s always room for improvement with the use of regular household items. I haven’t done it seriously as I recall the last time I did do something indoors was almost a decade ago and those where I think some of the most productive years of doing both indoor and outdoor toy shoots.
But this one holds for now and feel free to give pointers I’m open for some constructive anecdotes. I think this was just fine enough to finally capture the goal for this composition since Stargirl, the TV series has slowly crept in my weekly watchable shows. I haven’t been caught up with the recent CW shows since the only time I tried seeing the series was during the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossovers and after that, I just stopped. But Stargirl is just fine and I’ve seen the most recent episode last night and that was the outcome of this mini-project.
I hope you find it interesting to see the behind the scenes until the next one. For now, this will do and hope you enjoy reading about it as well as I do putting it together.
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