Today’s Bacon | Mike Stimpson
by Joe
It’s not exactly a rare occurrence for a Lego Stormtrooper to appear in my macro photos, and the fellow in this shot is my go-to guy when I want to try out a new technique. I’m not sure how I came up with the idea of him tending to his Lego flowers, but it fitted with the lighting style I wanted.
The effect I was going for is one I’ve seen used in some of Joe McNally’s photos recently, the faked sunset. It’s a great technique for when the light quality is poor (in this case, the direct sun was way too bright and contrasty). You move into the shade, and make your own sun! The photo is lit with a mixture of ambient daylight and flash. It was a bright enough day that the 1/250th exposure allowed the background to come through, but the key light is an off-camera Nikon SB-800 flash fitted with a 1/2 CTO gel to mimic the colour of the late afternoon sun.
Easy stuff really, the hardest bit was getting the Lego Stormtrooper to stand up in the grass. He ended up impaled on a cocktail stick hammered into the ground.
This is a bit like yesterday’s Danbo characters. I have some Naruto action figures I’m starting to think maybe I’ll take them out for a shoot later tonight. Like I said in yesterday’s post sometimes a photo isn’t just capturing something that is happening but making something happen. On a point and shoot camera you can do this by setting it to macro mode, that is usually represented by a flower icon. Point and shoots take some remarkable close up photos
Mike has an amazing collection of Star Wars photos. I encourage you to check them out.
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Tags: Macro, Nikon, Nikon D200, SB-800
