Tag: scavenger hunt

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

For my “Two shades of green”, I first wanted to shoot some malachite, because malachite is pretty, AND usually two shades of green. But I don’t have any malachite around. So I looked on the Internet, and ordered a bunch of small gemstones that did contain one malachite stone. They were very pretty, but the (presumed) malachite one was not bicolor 😦 I still got a 52Frames “Curves” shot out of the set, and I managed to get a shot for two shades of green too:

Despite significant effort (aligning these things has been a challenge), this picture was my least favorite of the set at the time I took it. In particular, I wasn’t happy with the grey background and was considering re-shooting it on black.

Buuuuuut we happen to be doing some bird-sitting for friends (who have a bird and went on holidays), and that bird is…. mostly green, and two different shades of green at that. So I took some shots at a time where it was standing on Pierre’s arm (which is, like, its favorite place in the whole word, or so it seems), and managed to get this one.

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	smc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length	100 mm
F-Number	F/3.5
Exposure time	1/60 s
ISO	1000

I exctracted the close-up and played a bit with the colors to match the theme a bit more closely, and that was it!

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Green album.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

It took me a little while to decide what I wanted to shoot for “Collection”. My first idea was to get a picture of my collection of piping bag tips, but it felt a bit too close from another picture for this Hunt. I also have some collections of stationery and writing implements, but I felt like I had done a lot of these already, so this was not very motivating. I even considered the collection of chocolate bars on the shelf… before I remembered I had a fairly decent collection of dice, which was also at a scale that would work well with the 100mm!

As often in these cases, it starts with “urgh I’m going to try the lazy way and not add lights or anything”, it continues with “okay, I’m getting one light, but I’m holding it on my own”, and it finishes with “FINE, I have two LED panels (and their cables because I forgot to charge their batteries AGAIN) and if it’s not enough to get a sharp shot I’ll get the tripod”. After a significant amount of shots and dice reorganizing, I finally got a shot I could crop and light up (because even with the lights, I wanted some depth of field AND I still got too lazy to get the tripod, so hand held it was, so short exposure it was):

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	smc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length	100 mm
F-Number	F/11
Exposure time	1/160 s
ISO	1000

And that’s basically what I did for the processing – nothing too fancy there. The only thing is that I played a bit with the various sliders of color saturations to get nice colors without having the reds bleeding everywhere.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Collection album.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

Words that relate to an abstract concept or to movement, like “Reaction”, are the ones I fear most; but for this one the idea of a chemical reaction came to me very early on. One of the most straightforward (and safe!) chemical reactions that can be done with household items is to mix baking soda with vinegar: it bubbles! I took a significant amount of takes and I went through a lot of baking soda, but when I saw the crop of this image, I exclaimed “That’s the one!”. I find the bubble details exquisite and I really like the composition with the curve in the right corner.

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	smc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length	100 mm
F-Number	F/8
Exposure time	1/250 s
ISO	200

I had to think hard on whether to leave a bit of the baking soda in the picture. On the one hand, it made the image slightly more obviously “on theme”; on the other hand, the picture was better without it. So I went for the pretty picture rather than for the clearer theme – to me, it was definitely the right choice.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Reaction album.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

My first idea on “Tin” had to do with soldering; but taking pictures while handling tools heating at 300°C sounded like a particularly bad idea – especially since, as we all know, you already need three hands when soldering. And suddenly I remembered that cans were also called tins or tin cans, and I had an idea for the first image I shot for this Hunt!

I setup the cans on my faithful piece of black fabric and started getting pictures. It took a few back and forths between the camera and the setup, to align the cans just so and to align them with the light just so. But I eventually got my shot.

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	smc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length	100 mm
F-Number	F/5
Exposure time	1/30 s
ISO	1600

As you can guess, the edits were fairly straightforward on this one – apart from fixing a few details/blemishes.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Tin album.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

“Party” is not exactly an easy word to photograph these days – most restrictions are lifted, but it’s still going to be a while before I will consider going to a proper party 🙂 And I did want something in the close-up/macro direction… My first thought was to take pictures of bubbly wine, but it felt uninspiring. Confetti seemed more fun! I ordered two sets of confetti, and that was a good thing, because I hesitated ordering the star ones, and they ended up being a much better fit than the other ones I had first chosen.

I setup the confetti on an oven sheet pan, and started making pictures as I was throwing them. At the beginning, I was trying to hold the camera in one hand and throw the confetti with the other; I eventually gave in and setup a tripod, a remote, and multiple shots on trigger… as I was continuing to throw confetti in my pan. I settled on this picture, which was both reasonably sharp and still had some movement to it:

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	smc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length	100 mm
F-Number	F/9
Exposure time	1/20 s
ISO	1600

I’m not suuuper convinced by my edit there, but I think the major problem was the light, which feels… I don’t know, flat. But, it is what it is, and I have a Party shot!

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Party album.

For the 32nd Scavenger Hunt, I had decided (even before the Hunt words were public!) to try to make a series with wooden manikins. And it worked out well, because there was an extra constraint on this Hunt: all the pictures had to be square, and the 10th was supposed to be a grid of the 9 other pictures. I like the square format, and I tend to crop in postprocessing rather than in camera, so this wasn’t much of a constraint for me – and since I had decided on a unifying theme already, this played out nicely!

I didn’t really shoot the images to “fit” a grid or a narrative (one constraint at a time 😉 ), but I was still fairly intentional in placing the pictures. The middle one (Denim) was the only one where I had the two manikins, so it needed to be in the middle. My idea for the grid was that the other pictures would represent some dreams they would be having while sleeping – and it kind of feels that these are weird enough to be believable dreams 😉 I placed the Spaghetti and the Hairbrush on opposite sides because they were both representing hair-related topics; and the other 6 I placed by trying to have some kind of directing line to the center.

And that’s it – this concludes the 32th Scavenger Hunt – which resulted in my favorite set ever in all the sets I submitted 🙂

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Grid album.

For the 32nd Scavenger Hunt, I had decided (even before the Hunt words were public!) to try to make a series with wooden manikins. Given the distinct lack of hair on wooden manikins, this made the whole concept of a hairbrush confusing… which is literally the theme I went to for this picture.

I took the shots of the composite on a week-end morning before my shower, which you can see with the use of my superb teal bathrobe 😉

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/6.3
Exposure time	1/6 s
ISO	800

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/16
Exposure time	2 s
ISO	400

Is that mannikin standing on a piano stool standing on another stool? You bet it is. Was my bathroom full of photo material for a few hours? You bet it was. (It’s fine, we have two 😛 ) Especially since this composite turned out to be particularly tricky. I had not realized how very important it was for the hand of the manikin and the hairbrush to have “compatible” angles – and I realized my mistake after having worked quite a lot on the first version of this image. For reference, this is the first version:

I was, to put it mildly, quite dismayed. (The words “I ABSOLUTELY HATE THAT PICTURE” were definitely uttered in multiple places.) But oh well – back to the shooting studio, I got way more careful with my angles, and I finally got something that worked better. I’m still not entirely happy with it: in particular, I have the impression that the difference in size between the brush and the manikin shows in the fact the brush seems sharper – I tried to correct it, I don’t think I fully managed it. And speaking of sharpness, the sharpness of the hand is debatable too – the DOF is probably a bit off / too shallow (Clearly, my bathroom is not large enough 😉 ).

But I did manage to get what I wanted with the picture, which is what matters! I’m happy I stuck with it and that I made the effort of reshooting, because it was well worth it. Note that extracting the brush hair was a pain, but I think I did well there. I’m also happy with the addition of the question mark: I would have liked it if hadn’t felt necessary, but “interrogative” is a fairly hard body language to make work without ambiguity – so I think this makes the intention clear without being incredibly obtrusive.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Hairbrush album.

For the 32nd Scavenger Hunt, I had decided (even before the Hunt words were public!) to try to make a series with wooden manikins. My Spaghetti idea comes straight out of Day of the Tentacle – if you have played it, you probably remember the reference; if you haven’t, you really should 🙂

I was hoping for a slightly more dramatic pile of spaghetti, but gravity was already hard enough on me for this one! I didn’t have too many takes for this one – but most of the takes I had were re-posed between to takes because the spaghetti kept falling down.

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/6.3
Exposure time	1/50 s
ISO	800

In the end, that’s the picture I chose – and that was the last picture I shot for this Hunt – I was a bit afraid of staining my manikin (which would have made later shots more complicated) – but that actually didn’t happen, she still looks as new 🙂 And the edits were very straightforward there – except for the fact that I need to clean my camera so that I don’t have a gazillion spots to edit away 😉

The final image doesn’t quite fit my initial vision (because gravity’s hard): my plan was for a much larger, somewhat conical, pile of spaghetti hair. But the pose ended up working very well, and it looks fairly natural, which I like a lot! The blue background was also lucky, but a good call: I think it works well too. And I’m very happy with the daylight coming from the top of the image – this looks very pretty.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Spaghetti album.

For the 32nd Scavenger Hunt, I had decided (even before the Hunt words were public!) to try to make a series with wooden manikins. Denim was one of the words for which I had little to no idea. I considered texturing a manikin in denim, and making small denim clothes for them, which would require far more skill than I have for them to look remotely okay – I have friends who I’m sure could have helped, but this felt a bit overkill.

When in lack of inspiration, I sometimes often turn to Google Images – a few well chosen words often help unlocking ideas or concepts. In that specific case, it came almost empty… except for a picture of a manikin hidden in someone’s jeans pocket. I started exploring around that idea, looking whether my manikins actually did fit in a jeans pocket, and what I could do with that.

I finally landed on the idea of “actually, this looks pretty cosy – maybe they sleep in jean pockets at night!” A few more experiments, getting on of Pierre’s jeans instead of mine (I have decently sized pockets because I wear men jeans, but Pierre is thinner than I am, which worked better for the picture 😉 ), a bit of posing the manikins in sleep-like positions, adding some tissues for the pillows, and tada! a picture!

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/6.3
Exposure time	1/25 s
ISO	1600

The edit for this one was pretty straightforward – removing the wood texture of the table, a few stray fibers that were distracting, and color toning.

I’m a bit on the fence on my decision to have that image that dark; on the one hand, I wanted to give the impression of a dark night/room; on the other hand, I wonder if maybe I didn’t overdo it a bit; and the shadows are probably too harsh too.

Still, I’m happy with the concept and the image. I absolutely love my little pillows – I think they really help selling the picture (and they’re cute!). I also like the posing of the manikins – I think it feels realistic! And I think the idea of “night” is well conveyed by the dark blue color toning. Finally, this was a more straightforward shot than many shots in this series, which meant spending less time on it, which I appreciate 😉

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Denim album.

For the 32nd Scavenger Hunt, I had decided (even before the Hunt words were public!) to try to make a series with wooden manikins. For the “Umbrella” theme, I knew I wanted to go with a “Singing in the Rain” theme. I have actually not seen the movie (I should fix that, probably 🙂 ) – but there’s a well-known image where Gene Kelly is dancing with a street lamp, under the rain, with his umbrella. Now it turns out that his umbrella is a longer, closed one; since I don’t own a non-compact umbrella, I went for an open one!

My first impulse was to try and make pictures of a “real” street lamp and to composite the manikin into it… until I glanced at my apartment plants and saw they could work very well, scale-wise, as a modern street lamp. It would look pretty artificial, for sure – but that’s also part of the whole “studio” look that I felt could work pretty well. So that was my first picture:

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/7.1
Exposure time	1/60s
ISO	800

For the rest of the image, I needed an umbrella. I recruited my husband to pose with an umbrella in our bedroom (I needed space and a dark curtain!). I had setup the light in the same approximative direction as the light coming from my “street lamp”, took a few shots (taking into account the fact that I needed both the full canopy of the umbrella and the handle), and there we go.

Camera	Pentax K-1 II
Lens	Sigma 28mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro
Focal length	28mm
F-Number	F/4
Exposure time	1/25s
ISO	1600

The majority of the work was to remove the white surface below the feet and the leaves – that was surprisingly tricky! So was reconstituting the umbrella shaft – getting something that “felt” right was tough. As a last step, I added some rain – I mostly followed this tutorial: How to Add Rain to a Photo with Photoshop.

There’s a couple of things I’m not entirely satisfied with in this picture – in particular, I feel like I should have added a “road” texture on the ground; and I literally saw right now as I’m writing that post two weeks after entering the image that I had issues in the umbrella canopy too 😦 I also don’t know what to think about the rain – maybe I should have gone for something a bit bolder. And also added some water on my plants to sell it better 🙂

That said, it is one of my favorite pictures of this round. I’m very happy with the manikin posing and, while I’m a bit skeptical on my handling of the rain, I did learn something there. I’m also very happy with the light of the composite – this was luck more than skill, I think, but it feels pretty spot on (pun… intended.) I’m also very happy I got the idea of using my plant’s light: I think it works significantly better, scale-wise, than anything I could have done with a real street lamp!

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Umbrella album.