I'm just going to come out and say it. Whoever is the guy that takes the photographs for McFarlane toys? I want your job. I'm sure you have loads of other duties and responsibilities around the office, but watch your back. I make a mean cup of coffee and I'm not completely useless in front of a copier, either. I'm coming for you, baby!
That brings us to today's photo of Lilith. I've been watching the 365 Days video podcast and it's made me think about how I approach my toy portraits. Chris Maverick has a fantastic tutorial about his lighting set up and I really wanted to try and apply some of his techniques to my toy photos.
My setup wasn't all that elaborate, but I built a reflector out of aluminum foil to help balance out the shadows and bring the whole figure a much richer color and clarity. I just bounced a regular pocket flashlight off the reflector and clicked the shutter. It took a couple of tries, but I'm really, really pleased with how it looks so far. Taking it into Photoshop, I only played with the contrast a little and added the glow for the painted look that I like so much, and Save As.
Now if I could only shoot people like this!
Four score and EXIF years ago:
| Camera: | Fujifilm FinePixS2Pro |
| Exposure: | 0.333 sec (1/3) |
| Aperture: | f/1.8 |
| Focal Length: | 50 mm |
| ISO Speed: | 100 |
| Exposure Bias: | -1 EV |
| Orientation: | Horizontal (normal) |
| X-Resolution: | 72 dpi |
| Y-Resolution: | 72 dpi |
| Software: | Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows |
| Date and Time: | 2008:01:16 18:29:51 |
| Tag::TIFF::0x882A: | -6, -6 |
| Exposure Program: | Normal |
| Date and Time (Original): | 2008:01:16 18:17:39 |
| Date and Time (Digitized): | 2008:01:16 18:17:39 |
| Shutter Speed: | 1584963/1000000 |
| Brightness: | -266/100 |
| Metering Mode: | Center Weighted Average |
| Color Space: | Uncalibrated |
| Focal Plane X-Resolution: | 630 dpc |
| Focal Plane Y-Resolution: | 630 dpc |
| Sensing Method: | One-chip colour area sensor |
| Exposure Mode: | Auto bracket |
| Focal Length In 35mm Film: | 75 |
| Saturation: | High saturation |
| Compression: | JPEG |
| Image Width: | 1211 pixels |
| Image Height: | 2022 pixels |
Be good,
-Dave
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2 Reply to "Lilith"
creativeapples on January 17, 2008 at 5:22 AM
i really really like how this turned out-- the lighing is fantastic! it has a very nice even tone about it.
great job! (yes, send your resume to mcfarland!!)
Mav on January 24, 2008 at 9:52 AM
I'm glad we could be of help.
If you're doing a lot of toy photography, I'd really like to recommend you look into building a "macro studio." I have other friends into toy photography and they've been really happy with the results. Instructions on how to build one for about $10 worth of parts can be found here:
http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html
the strobist tends to use flashes for his photography. If you don't have an off camera flash, then you can always use one of the $5 shop lights I recommended in the podcast for constant lighting. You can get them at most hardware stores.
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