Scavenger Hunt #37 – Tape

Two wooden manikins on all fours, busy rewinding a VHS tape in front of a TV showing an "end of programmes" test card.

For the Scavenger Hunt #37, I revisited the theme I had used in Scavenger Hunt #32 – the wooden manikins are back!

The word “Tape” is the one for which I went through the most different concepts over the timeframe of the Hunt. I started thinking about putting tape on a gift to close it; same thing with a moving box; I considered an audio tape (but I don’t think I have any in the apartment), I did A Lot of attempts at making a measuring tape work (either as “measuring furniture” or “tailor measurements”… nothing quite worked. And then, I remembered that I had a VHS tape somewhere!! (This tape is coming from 3D Construction Kit, for which we have a box… containing said intro video tape.)

I had the “rewinding” notion early on, but I added the blue blanket and the “end of programmes” image on the TV/tablet behind after a few first takes to help sell the “rewinding the video rental after having watched it” – how 90s of me.

A very underexposed and uncropped version of the previous image of manikins rewinding a VHS tape.
CameraPentax K-1 II
LensPentax D FA 24-70mm F2.8
Focal length31mm
F-NumberF/11
Exposure time1/40 s
ISO800

The pictures from my fellow Scavengers are here: Tape.

Scavenger Hunt #37 – Map

Two wooden manikins sitting on a Scotland map.

For the Scavenger Hunt #37, I revisited the theme I had used in Scavenger Hunt #32 – the wooden manikins are back!

I felt a bit stumped on the word “Map” – my first idea was to play around my manikins being lost and looking at a map – but making a manikin-sized map looked like it would be a hassle, especially for something that’d be readable as a map on a picture. So I went the other way around – and I decided to show the story of planning a travel to <searches the apartment for a map, any map> Scotland, and tada!

Two wooden manikins sitting on a Scotland map - very underexposed picture.
CameraPentax K-1 II
LensPentax D FA 24-70mm F2.8
Focal length68mm
F-NumberF/9
Exposure time1/60 s
ISO800

It took a little while to get the right frame and light, but once I had that, the edits were fairly straightforward.

The pictures from my fellow Scavengers are here: Map.

Scavenger Hunt #37 – Hygge

A wooden manikin looking cozy in a cow-spots-patterned blanket, holding a mug in one hand and a green book in the other.

For the Scavenger Hunt #37, I revisited the theme I had used in Scavenger Hunt #32 – the wooden manikins are back!

The picture for Hygge is the first one I shot, and the only one I had for a long time during this hunt (I shot 7 out of 10 pictures on the last week-end before the time limit, so… not exactly early.) Looking for inspiration, hygge seems to evoke coziness, chimney fires, hot cocoa and the like. I re-used a piece of fabric that I had bought for “Cow” in a previous Hunt (yay, prop re-use!) to serve a blanket, and I cut a small book in a Nespresso ad that I had received a couple of days earlier. I’m *particularly* proud of the mug: it’s actually the cap of the box of earbuds tips that came with my new-ish earbuds – I was looking for something in that direction, was considering buying some clay to make something the right size, and… tada! A bit of blue tack to hold the mug and the book, a bit of posing and quite a few takes later, I had my picture.

Unedited version of the previous picture; the colors are less vivid and the framing is a bit wider.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length63mm
F-NumberF/14
Exposure time6 s
ISO500

I processed with warm tones to give the possible impression of a fireplace in front of the manikin. The fabric and manikin were a bit same-ish in the initial processing, so I darkened the manikin to make it “pop” a bit more against the cow blanket.

The pictures from my fellow Scavengers are here: Hygge.

Scavenger Hunt #37 – Lost

A wooden manikin on all fours, with its arm stuck between the cushions of a sofa, probably looking for its keys.

For the Scavenger Hunt #37, I revisited the theme I had used in Scavenger Hunt #32 – the wooden manikins are back!

For “Lost”, I went for the pretty straightforward narrative of “having lost one’s keys (or phone, or whatever else) between the cushions of the sofa”. So this was essentially posing the manikin, shooting, basic processing, and done.

A unedited version of the previous picture, very underexposed and with a bluer tone.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length100mm
F-NumberF/8
Exposure time1/80 s
ISO800

The pictures from my fellow Scavengers are here: Lost.

Scavenger Hunt #37 – Empty

A wooden manikin standing in a large empty white room.

For the Scavenger Hunt #37, I revisited the theme I had used in Scavenger Hunt #32 – the wooden manikins are back!

For the word “Empty”, I wanted a very minimalist image, with the idea of the manikin being in a completely empty room. I wasn’t exactly sure of how to achieve that because I lack a clean seamless white background of that size. But I got the idea of shooting from above on top of our (white) coffee table.

A wooden manikin standing on a white table, base for the previous image.
CameraPentax K-1 II
LensPentax D FA 24-70mm F2.8
Focal length70mm
F-NumberF/6.3
Exposure time1/60 s
ISO800

This gave me a manikin on a white background with a shadow below it (shadows are important to ground things on a surface, otherwise they’re floating!). I processed it by cropping the white content, increasing the canvas size to give more space to the image (and relying on software magic and a lot of cloning tools to make said canvas increase “realistic enough”), and making the whole image black&white to emphasize the minimalist approach.

The pictures from my fellow Scavengers are here: Empty.

#52Frames – 2022-47 and 2022-48

2022-47: Wabi-Sabi

A dry bromeliad flower over a black background. It has a large, curly, dry leaf texture.

Last week’s theme was “Wabi-sabi” – I had been procrastinating removing the dried flower from my bromeliad; I finally did it, and I immortalized it in this picture. It’s taken on my kitchen countertop, which has the nice idea of being black enough; there was a reflection that I tried to use, but to no avail; so I went for the fully black background instead.

2022-48 – Animals

Pairs of wooden animals aligned as if they are queuing. From front to back: tiny camels, sheep, pigs, cows, donkeys, horses and elephants.

And the theme for this week was “Animals”. There was a clear expectation of, well, live animals, but that was not happening on a Sunday evening at 21:00. But, thankfully, I have board games. Somehow I went for a Noah’s Ark theme – because that made me smile. And, interestingly enough, I got two pictures in a row with opposite backgrounds and opposite diagonals!

#52Frames – 2022-46 – Food

Close-up of food: hummus, falafel, various salads, baba ganoush, grilled halloumi cheese and cheese in fried phyllo

The theme for this week’s 52Frames was “Food”. I knew that what we’d order on Friday night would probably be the most appetizing/colorful food of the week, so I took a few pictures, despite not having any kind of natural light, and being too hungry to set up proper lighting. In all fairness, I had setup some Lume cubes on my Platypod, and then I saw I hadn’t put them in the right holes to be able to raise the Platypod, and I ended up shooting holding my camera by hand.

Despite the dire lack of proper light, I’m not too grumpy with this picture – I think I did a reasonable job with colors in post and, while it’s not great, it’s… decent. And that was some very tasty food too 🙂

52Frames – 2022-40 to 45

I haven’t been the most inspired for 52Frames lately, but I still haven’t broken my streak. So, here are my latest submissions. I’m too lazy to add comments, but I made the alt text more visible as captions too to compensate.

2022-40 – Rule of Odds

Three spatulas in a metallic pot over a wooden counter
Three spatulas in a metallic pot over a wooden counter

2022-41 – Shoot through something

Distorted piano keys, seen through a crystal ball that makes them look curved, with black&white processing. The image is very symmetrical.
Distorted piano keys, seen through a crystal ball that makes them look curved, with black&white processing. The image is very symmetrical.

2022-43 – Black&White Minimalism

Black and white picture of hands in fingerless gloves over a Typematrix BÉPO keyboard, on a black background. The keyboard shows some wear and tear.
Black and white picture of hands in fingerless gloves over a Typematrix BÉPO keyboard, on a black background. The keyboard shows some wear and tear.

2022-43 – Details

Brown and orange butterfly on a white flower, with a blurry green background.
Brown and orange butterfly on a white flower, with a blurry green background.

2022-44 – Chaos

Reflections of large trees in calm water ; the blue sky and the bottom of the water interact visually in somewhat eerie way.
Reflections of large trees in calm water ; the blue sky and the bottom of the water interact visually in somewhat eerie way.

2022-45 – Street Photography

A man wearing a hat and a woman sitting on a bench facing the lake. Two covered boats with red buoys are visible on the lake; the city and some trees are visible in the background of the lake. Two cranes surplomb the city.
A man wearing a hat and a woman sitting on a bench facing the lake. Two covered boats with red buoys are visible on the lake; the city and some trees are visible in the background of the lake. Two cranes surplomb the city.

36th Scavenger Hunt

I will admit: my participation to the 36th Scavenger Hunt was half-assed. I didn’t even submit the whole set – I was missing three; and some of these are, at best, backup shots. That said, I did submit images, and there are one or two that I’m actually happy with – so let’s go! In alphabetical order of submitted words, because why not. All the albums are available on the above link – visit them for more inspired creations around this list!

Bump

Close-up of a tram tracks intersection, processed in high contrast black&white.

Tram tracks are definitely bumpy – not that much when driving a car (and even then…), but definitely so when using rollerblades, a scooter, a bike, or anything else. I may or may not have occasionally tripped on them when walking! The weather was very bright when I took this picture; I tried to compensate with a black&white processing and an abstract-ish composition. Feels pretty weak to me.

Door

An open tram door that shows the driver cabin and the front of the tram. The tram is blue and white; the interior is red with yellow handles.

Taken a few meters away from the tram track – again, not hugely inspired. Also, that tram was stopped in a photographically-annoying place, there’s a metallic pole on the right of the picture, and the crop as complicated.

Red/Green

Composite image showing traffic and traffic lights on a intersection with both the red and green lamps on.

For this one, we knew that our images would also be sent to a colorblindness simulation filter. I didn’t know exactly what to do with that information, but I still wanted something that would convey a red/green notion, even if all the colors disappeared. I played with multiple exposures around a trafic light; I wasn’t intending to have the blurred cars in the first place, but my experiments actually went there, and I didn’t hate it. I first took these images as a “proof of concept”, and I wantend to take some more with a bit more intent (… and a tripod), but that did not happen, so… that’s the picture.

The deuteranomaly filter got applied for the reveals here: Red Green.

Seated

A chairlift cabin next to a mountain landscape. The sky is blue with some clouds, the mountains are visible at some distance.

Seated is the first picture I took and, for a long while, was the only one I’d submit this round. We went to Stoos at the very beginning of the Hunt, and we spent a significant amount of time going up and down the neighboring mountains in that kind of chair lifts! It was brilliant. This is my favorite picture for this round.

Sign

A tree stump with lichen and ivy, seen from the side, with a small metallic sign indicating that it was a Tilia platyphilla, or Sommerlinde (in German), of the Tiliaceae family, growing in Europa. A red brick building is visible in the background at the top of the image, where the tree used to be.

There was an extra field for the Sign picture to provide an alt text for the description of the image. I’ve been trying to do that systematically for quite some time – this way, I was ready! Here’s what I submitted for this one: “A tree stump with lichen and ivy, seen from the side, with a small metallic sign indicating that it was a Tilia platyphilla, or Sommerlinde (in German), of the Tiliaceae family, growing in Europa. A red brick building is visible in the background at the top of the image, where the tree used to be.”

I’m always sad when trees are felled, but I recognize that it is sometimes necessary. Keeping the sign plate and a fairly large stump felt like a good idea to me – as a kind of a memorial to the tree in question.

Silence

A woman wearing a large headset and a Doctor Who blue TARDIS t-shirt, looking calm.

Picturing “Silence” is not easy – but I finally got the idea of using my noise cancelling headphones for that purpose. I hadn’t really planned my t-shirt choice, but it worked out perfectly, especially since Doctor Who has villains called the Silence! I went for a slightly high-key, slightly soft processing to emphasize the idea of calm (because silence is, well, good :P)