Toys Playing Games - Ben Stephenson

I was due to be doing one of the five minute member presenations on 1st June, but am going to have to cancel due to having to go to Barcelona with work.

So instead the pictures will be here, and you can look at them at your leisure. Or not.

There is also a Flash gallery here, which has the images but not the stuff that I was going to say: http://www.bstephenson.net/ToysFlash/index.html (requires Adobe Flash, obviously)

Bigger pictures and "narrative" follow the gallery. Comments box at the bottom, apologies for the big page and slow loading times

I bought a Macro lens at the end of last year but haven’t really done very much with it, so I thought I'd look into doing a Macro project.

While in Waterstones I noticed a book by an artist called Slinkachu, titled “Little people in the city” and I decided to take inspiration from that.

All photos were taken with a Sigma 70mm macro lens on a Pentax K100D?, all using a tripod and remote shutter release. Image stabilisation was turned off. I also fixed the ISO at 800. (I'm not really sure what this means…) Most are cropped and sharpened in Lightroom 3, and a few were tweaked in Photoshop CS3

The first thing I looked at was my Star Wars Lego, and positioned the little people in and around the computer.

Darth Vader and Obi Wan having a duel on my keyboard

1/4 at f2.8

After an reasonably unsuccessful 30 minutes, Yoda and Mace Windu sat back and chilled out to some music

1/10 at f2.8

And were then joined by Obi Wan and Darth Vader to watch a film.

This one was difficult to get the detail on the characters but enough of the screen to see what it is – this was the fifth attempt to get the screen in focus, each time moving up an f stop until you could see it

6s at f22

These ones were taken in a dark room (it was evening) with the overhead light on and a hand held torch to add some extra highlights.

Then I moved on to PlayMobil.

All of the following shots were taken during the day, with a large patio door providing the light and white card propped up to bounce it back in from the other side.

First up, the crazily-small-DoF portrait shot:

1/30 at f2.8

Then pulling out a bit so you can see that... he's playing Monopoly!

1/45 at f4

This next one started as trying to show an interesting background...

1/15 at f5.6

...Looking at it again now, the word that springs to mind is “corruption”.

And when the Suit won't accept the builder's offer...

1/8 at f8

... increase it!

Once planning permission has been granted, start building as many houses as you can!

1/45 at f4

You might notice that this isn't the standard Monopoly board. It's actually Sunderland Monopoly, and the houses here are going on the Stadium of Light, which is the equivalent of Park Lane.

So he should be pretty happy when the next player lands on it!

1/45 at f4

0.5 at f22

This one is fairly dark as the light is coming from directly behind, and the reflector isn't bouncing enough back in.

And the chair in the background is distracting, but I didn't notice it until afterwards...

Once you've landed on the square, you have to pay your rent.

1/10 at f8

Notice the fantastic Photoshopping turning her smiley face into a sad face...

1/8 at f8

This is a composite of two spinning dice photos, overlaid to make it look like he span two dice (switch the camera to Continuous, spin the dice and hold the button down, then find two where the shadows aren't overlapping)

Both 1/15 at f8

And finally a "still life" of the Monopoly pieces.

1/15 at f9.5

And after Monopoly, we moved on to Mouse Trap!

The main problem with Mouse Trap was that the red plastic is so bright that it seems to take over some of the photos. I've toned it down in some of the later ones (not particularly well though...)

Building the contraption

0.5 at f16

Team work was required to move the larger pieces

0.5 at f16

Same shot, much larger aperture:

1/60 at f2.8

Same shot, different angle:

1/60 at f2.8

More team work to move the bath tub into place...

... but there is always one who has to mess around.

Both 1/10 at f6.7

Still messing about and getting in the way...

1/20 at f6.7

But once the trap is built and set...

... the unlucky mouse gets caught!

The End

14 Jun 2010 - 20:32 -- BobKeene

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14 Jun 2010 - 20:36 -- BobKeene

Hey Ben - you should get out more !! Seriously though, I think it's a brilliantly concieved and executed exercise. What a shame you didn't get to use it at the club - I'm sure it would have been very well received. Looks like you've got a great lens there too. Keep up the good work. Bob K.

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15 Jun 2010 - 10:50 -- JohnAshford

Fun! Send one or two to Steve for 'Macro' month? (Also I have put a <nop> in front of <nop>PlayMobil to stop it trying to be a page link.)

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