With things getting back to almost ‘normal’ again, my photography club had the AGM and a new schedule was proposed for 2021 filled with great challenges. The first one being action figures.

I did a fair bit of research on YouTube and the web to get some ideas and inspiration. There is a raft of material to source out there. Then once I decided on the theme, I put the word out that I was looking for toys to use in the images.

My niece Gemma managed to find some toys that the young owner wanted to part with, for 5 bucks….!

A plane, a jeep, some action men….perfect for what I had creatively envisaged for my project.

How cool was that!!!

I needed to purchase a few items from my local Bunnings to make this all come together…rope, wire etc.

But all up, this little project cost next to nothing.

My thought process was to use older images as background to give the effect I needed.

For the ‘May Day….May Day….Going Down’ image I used a spectacular morning sunrise image taken a few weeks back and blended the 2 images in photoshop.
And for the corvette, I chose one of my Perth skyline images.
The ‘Comic jeep’ was photographed against natural elements found in my garden and processed in Lightroom and Topaz studio.
I used a cloud image to act a snow in the image created of the soldiers.

I wanted to have the toy plane look like it was actually flying, so tied some rope around a tree and a pole. In this way I could suspend the plane in mid-air. Knowing could remove the rope in post processing. This is what the set-up looked like before I started shooting

I also wanted to have a dramatic background - like the plane was going down in a war zone! Not an easy feat, when you are doing this in your backyard. BUT, I had a brainwave….I had the perfect image to blend into the background to give the effect I was after!

Once I had the angle and perspective I needed, I took the shot….and the rest was magically created in Lightroom and Photoshop, using techniques learnt from Adam Williams and Easy Way Photography https://www.easywayphotography.com.au/ - If you haven’t see this brilliant tuition yet (Where have you been?) - do it…do it NOW! If you want to know how to post process images like the pro’s….click on the link. You won’t be sorry!!

Check out the Easy Way Photography Facebook page for more details https://www.facebook.com/australianphotographer

My final image….was EPIC….just what I was after! And was so easy to do and process…..and more importantly, it was such FUN to do.

Doing something different that I could do at home during lockdown was the perfect remedy to get my creative juices flowing, it also forced me to think outside the box and let my imagination run wild!

Hope you enjoy the images, as much I enjoyed taking and processing them!

Till the next adventure!