Underfoot 06: Safe and Warm at Home

Improving Old Shots with Lightroom

I mostly go into Photoshop to play around with my photographs, and just use Lightroom for its automatic adjustments. But, I've recently learned how to get more out of Lightroom, and am using it more often to adjust my shots. Here's a shot I adjusted completely in Lightroom, before my adjustment. Cute image, but totally...

Shooting under the bed with candlelight

Sharing a few shots from last night, when the cast of Underfoot was all cozied up in their beds watching Incredible Journey. I tried out a few angles and light sources: And ended up using this shot, with a mixture of two LED tealights plus one solid beam, and then adjusted to exposure to make...

Some under-the-bed shots

My experiment with the tablet-as-a-viewfinder and the flexible tripod has been wildly successful, IMO. My sense is that most of the success is due to using a larger viewfinder. A digression: Because I spend so much time setting up my shots *without* looking through the camera lens, I often realize after I've taken the shot...

Old dog, new tricks

And it's the "old" part of this that really drove me to the new tricks. In the last Underfoot episode, the pack found a safe place under a bed. So, that's where I need to photograph them - under the bed. Which means that I have to lay my camera on the floor, get on...

Underfoot 04: Mathilde and Cosette make a friend

Underfoot: The Doll Graveyard

Underfoot has gone through some changes since our last adventure. The two characters have new names and a new location. Meet Cosette and Mathilde and their adventures in France. Also, the new site is up at http://www.smalllifestories.com. Still in pretty preliminary form, but some pieces are ready. That said, I'm going to post the new...

Underfoot: A night in the shop

After being turned away from the hotel in their last episode, Jinjur and Buu take to the streets to find some place to stay the night. But the big world is not a safe place for little things Looking for a place to stay, they spot a shop. And use the mailslot to scramble in...

Taking action shots of inanimate objects

I've spent more hours than I'd care to guess trying to prop up my figures for motion shots. For my fashion dolls - all four of the My Doll Adventure  figures - I rely on some kind of stand. For my ball-joint dolls - all of the characters in the Underfoot and Up Above stories,...

(Doll) character development

I entered doll adventure land through a side door - somewhere between play and play therapy - so many of the building blocks of photography, miniatures, and writing are unfamiliar to me. Because I could see their effects in every shot, I focused my learning on photography and miniatures. But, as I start to branch...