I guess I could write about why I put Minimate photos up on my walls. But that doesn't seem too interesting. I had a big, empty space on my living room wall and a bunch of nice frames I found at a good price. And I just happen to have a unnatural fascination with these two-inch pieces of plastic. Why not combine them?



I could try and write about photographing Minimates, but that is a bit dull too. I set up my standard black background and my array of white LEDs. Set the camera on a tripod, adjust settings for long exposure and high DOF. Then find an interesting pose and shoot a ton of photos while playing with the lighting. Sometimes moving the light sources, sometimes not. Lighting from above, below, behind, or extreme angles. Rarely head-on though, too many ugly reflections that way.




Maybe I could write about the photos themselves. Yeah, that ought to fill a couple more paragraphs. I love that little spark of light in the blue Minimate head above. I don't know what caused it, how I did, or if I could do it again. That really what the experimentation is all about, right? It's how I approach photography anyway. Take a ton of photos and figure out what works for you.



Here's the trick though. Only show the good ones. If you show people every shot, the exceptional get lost in a sea of mediocrity. Don't show all the different crops or exposure variations. Find what you think is the best representation and run with that. Of course that isn't always easy. For the longest time I had a hard time deciding what was 'good'. I thought they were all crap. I'd show people whole rolls of film (yes, film) to tell me what the good shots were. But it was hard to find constructive feedback. Still is. Online photo forums seem to either rip everything to shreds or gush over the banal.



There's the final result. To tell the truth, it's a bit underwhelming in person. The digital photos just seem to 'pop' while the prints... well... don't. It could be any number of things. The prints came out too dark. My monitor isn't calibrated properly. My living room is too dark. The glass is too reflective.

I bet that's it. All my walls are white so the reflections just wash out the prints. Guess I'll just have to paint my walls then.