Project 365 Day 3. Waaaait a minute....

I have read advice from several photographers that suggest to photograph what you love. That's what today's photo will be.

You're going to look at the photo and cry foul!

"Hey! That's nothing more than a picture of a couple of toys! What's so special about that?" You'll ask.

Before you brand me a cheat, let's look at this picture a bit closer, shall we?

First, it's a fairly technical shot:

I placed them both on a figure stand in a light box (Google it), I shot my camera in manual exposure mode with macro lens on a tripod, using a shutter release to maximize sharpness and depth of field. I also shot this picture with not one, not two, but THREE off camera wireless flashes! Two of them were set at different exposures and all three were set at a different distance from the figures. ALL of which affect how the picture is lit.

I nailed all of this on my second or third shot.

If that's not enough for you, well, I love Iron Man. I have been a huge fan for more than 20 years. I have all of the comic books going back to the first issue, I have almost every action figure made of Iron Man. I have posters, t-shirts, stickers, coloring books, cups, toothbrushes and books with Shellhead's face slapped right on them. My friends call me Iron Whore. (No, really, they do. Ask any of them.) Shoot what you love.

How about this little tidbit of info?

The figure in the front?

I made that.

That's right, I MADE that.

It is an amalgamation of parts from about six different action figures that I put together and hand painted.
The figure in the back is from the first Iron Man movie toy line and is fairly rare as it is, but it's a six inch tall figure. I prefer the smaller 4 inch tall toys like the GI Joe and Star Wars figures I grew up with. But, they never made this figure in the 4 inch scale.

So, I made my own.



Brian Hatch photography