Brief Two: Interior Location [Original Idea; no longer doing]

You will notice from the very first post on my blog, that in the not to distant past, I shot some images of an Action Man toy I bought from a car boot sale in a host of human and 'action' situations. This is what I find most fun about photography, as it seems an ideal way to show my sense of humour. For this reason, I aim to come up with more situations to shoot Action Man in, and really develop the theme/sense of narrative.

Below are some examples of the ones I shot of him in the summer.

f4, 1/125th, ISO100, 50mm, Flash.
Upon uploading the images onto my photography Facebook , I wrote captions for some of them. This is what I aim to do for the interior images also. Example: for this: "Action Man really regretted drinking a full bottle of vodka down the legion last last" (only wittier than this).

f5.5, 1/80th, ISO400, 150mm, flash.
On some shots, a shallow depth of field was of the essence (esp as I used my Polaroid Close-Up filters to get real close), but for others the background detail was equally important in placing the 'toy' in recognisable human context. More about this later. 

f5.6, 1/200, ISO200, 200mm, flash.

The caption for this read: "When I asked him whether he would mind recreating the punishment he suffered at the hands of the Taliban for my own artistic aims, he was more than happy to obliged. In this instance I have replaced the tarpaulin sheet with plastic potato bag from ASDA. Needs must".

I possess a questionable sense of humour.

Since the course started, however, I have taken this concept a little further. With the help of a friend's ultra powerful, industrial torch, a lamp from Ikea, a black apron for backdrop, my tripod, close-up filters and the use of my camera's self-timer and manual focus setting, I think I have created something really special below:

f16, 1/8th, ISO400, 52mm, x2 close-up filter.
Why such a narrow aperture for what is ostensibly a portrait shot? Well, I wanted the torch and the long exposure to do all the work. I wanted the image crisp, and the background as dark as possible.

f8, 1/60th, ISO400, 55mm, x2 filter.
Went for the Bourne Ultimatum look here. I love the result.

I know this is lit on the other side, but you get the idea. Iconic? Maybe!

f8, 1/60th, ISO400, 55mm, x2 filter.
Least favourite of the three, but included it to get the message across. Dark, moody etc. Worries me that these won't fit with the others I plan to shoot, though.

All these practice shots really whet my appetite for the whole genre of toy photography. So, as is usually the protocol for this type of thing, I did a Google image search to see what else has been done. Below are the ones I found most exciting.

This is another Action Man shot taken by someone called Mon McAuley. Here we can see the effects using an immensely shallow depth of field lends to this sort of image. According to the website I found this: "The challenge of Toy Photography is to make the toy “lifelike”; to remove that “plastic-feel” to it and to make it more human" (1). Hopefully, when I get my 50mm f1.4 I too can create images like this.

The same photographer has recreated a typical scene you would see in Indiana Jones. This was used to stress that taking toys outside can be even more fun than indoor, although let's not forget this is my interior shoot. This reminds me of another of my Action Man shots taken outside when the weather was clement enough (below).

f5, 1/80th, ISO200, 135mm.
Shame I won't be able to take advantage of the great outdoors this time round. Conversely, thank God I don't have to go outside. Used my 50-200mm here to intensify depth of field, here, making him look more human in this wider context.

Watch this space for more examples and further research. Fancy recreating Leonardo De Vinci's Vetruvian 'Action' Man, for instance.

Postscript: I will not be doing this now. I have been informed I am not allowed to use flash or any other artificial light sources. Watch this space for a new brief, very possibly a set of portraits of Service Users from the dementia hospital I often work at.

1) http://digital-photography-school.com/getting-started-in-toy-photography