The pictures I took yesterday of Bugger, the hedgehog, inspired me to use some stuffed animals just to practice portrait lighting. They proved to be the most patient portrait subjects that I have ever worked with. It was hard to get a good smile out of them, but they never made that attempt at a smile that looks like the model has a bad case of gas either.
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157631695841224/ I realized that without having to worry about getting a good pose, good expression, making the model comfortable, I could actually do pictures of a teddy bear or the like in much less time than it takes to do a portrait session of a live model, and there might be a market for people who would like good pictures of their childhood teddy bear: It's your oldest friend, do you have any good pictures of it? Has anyone on the list done something like this? How did it work? What did you charge? Also, a bit of back story that some of you might find amusing. To start with, in this picture, the spud gun being fired at the left side of the photo is called "the gerbilator". It's pretty fun, using a pringles can as wadding, it can launch a can of beer about 100 feet vertically, with a range of about 200 feet. Several of the pictures in my gallery are of a small white Teddy bear. Sometime in 1990, shortly after I bought a motorcycle, I saw the teddy bear on closeout sale at a drugstore, and I thought it would be amusing to carry it in the vent pocket of my motorcycle jacket. The next day, a bunch of us rode up to a motorcycle show at the Cow Palace. One of the booth bunnies noticed it in my pocket as I was walking past and struck up a conversation with me. While I didn't get her phone number, I did realize that I had made a very good investment. Shortly thereafter, I named the teddy bear God, because "God is my copilot". Riding around with God in my motorcycle jacket, with just his head visible sticking out of my vent pocket was a lot of fun for the cognitive dissonance it would cause. People would see a black motorcycle, being ridden by a husky guy, covered neck to toes in black leather, with a pony tail, and a little white teddy bear. One sunny Sunday afternoon in May, I was riding my motorcycle from Santa Cruz to San Jose over hwy 17 and God fell out of my jacket. I may be crazy, but I'm not suicidal, so I did not stop to try to recover God. A few days later, before I could return at night, I came down with a cold and was barely leaving the house. A couple of weeks later, on a Friday night, we were starting one of our weekend parties at a friend's house (these were shot the following night http://www.armory.com/~images/?s=shoppeKluge ) and late that night we realized that well after midnight there was not much traffic on Hwy 17. So, at about 2AM, on a Saturday morning, Craig and I got on our motorcycles and went on a quest for God. And, lo! we were successful! Sometime between 2 and 3 that morning, we found God; lying in a gutter on the side of Hwy 17. Fortunately, God is machine washable. If you were to look on God's backside, you would note that some of his fur has been melted. We thought that it would be fun to make God fly, so we put God in the gerbilator, figuring that he'd seal well enough to be launched. Not entirely unlike this picture of a rabbit about to be launched from a lagomorphilator: http://www.armory.com/~spcecdt/photo/images/macdudebeach/rabbitInCannon.jpg Unfortunately, there was too much friction and rather than the expanding gasses launching God into the air, they just singed his butt. While he is machine washable, unfortunately, God is not fireproof. In the 20 or so years that I've owned God, he has had quite an adventurous life. He usually rides with me in the car when I'm racing, or teaching, at the racetrack. He has also been to burning man twice, as you can tell by the pendant he now wears. Yes, God is a burner. Some people go to burning man and see God, I bring God with me to the playa. Speaking of totems in race cars, some may appreciate the slices of plastic cheese that I was given to glue to my dashboard: http://www.red4est.com/lrc/pix/plasticcheeses/ If you don't understand why I would glue plastic cheese to the dashboard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6wXNmMyAPk the original version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRVK1FzC_Wk&feature=related Some other entertaining pictures from fun parties back before my friends and I became old and boring. They were taking by my friend John, the one in my "One eyed Jack" photo that is in this year's PDML annual. http://www.armory.com/~spcecdt/photo/images/macdudebeach/ http://www.armory.com/~images/ -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
