The photo challenge blog is back after a two-week break. I considered not doing anything this week since I have been really busy, but I ended up getting some photos worth sharing. The theme for the week was emphasizing scale. I had a few ideas for the topic (it was my suggestion, after all), but like previous weeks I just didn't have the time to explore all the possibilities. I may have to run through all of the themes after we finish and do the ideas that I didn't get to do. So, I think my intro is done. Let's see: I welcomed you back; I told you I almost (tragically) skipped this week; I introduced the theme; I made excuses for why I didn't take many pictures; I summarized my paragraph to this point. Yep, the intro is done. Now on to my pictures.

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This was one of my original ideas for this theme. I didn't think of this as comparing the scale of one item to the other but considering the scale of something as small as an acorn that can become something as large as these trees. I took these at the park at the Trinity River. This was not easy to do this day because there was about a 20 mph wind blowing sand all over me and my camera. I could hardly see from all the dust. I know, it's tough work being a photographer. Anyway, these trees in this area are incredible and huge. I love being able to enjoy things like this so close to my office.

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This was a fun one to do. I don't have the coolest, most photo-worthy vehicle, but I just needed some parts of it. I tried a lot of options for conveying this idea, but this one came out the best. I took a bunch of shots, put my things away and thought I was done until I realized how dirty my tires were. So I cleaned my tires, sprayed the driveway down with water, got everything out again and got this shot. It's amazing how much nicer a car shoot looks with clean, shiny tires and wet pavement. It's all in those little, extra things, folks. By the way, this toy car is one of about 10 that stay inside my truck. I'm not sure where they came from or when they showed up, but they have been in there for years and the kids play with them any time they ride with me.

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I took some shots downtown one afternoon. It was cloudy, windy and cold, but I got a couple shots I was happy with. Now, this one below is not a great shot, and I have certainly gotten better ones of this building, but scale was the theme. If you look in the center at the bottom of the shot, you will see a small black blob. That's me.

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For this shot, I didn't have anything in mind to compare it to for scale. I just thought this was so cool at illustrating the size of buildings like this. The super-wide angle lens I used helped exaggerate the height. I thought the flat grey sky helped with making this shot black and white (which is what I had in mind for it). This is the Carter Burgess Plaza (or whatever it is called now).

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So, I am finally down to my favorites. I'm not sure that these really illustrate the theme of emphasizing scale, but I don't care. These photos are great. This was another series that I took lots of shots in different poses. The light was decent outside. It was getting dark and there were clouds, so it was like shooting inside a giant softbox. I liked the background on this one and the pose was good, but the light on everything else just seemed boring. This worked well in black and white, and I added some noise to it to make look like an old photo (and to disguise how yellow my Stormtroopers arms and legs are).

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Looking at what the rest of what I got from these made me realize I needed to go back out and get the lighting right. By this time it was almost dark, so I took my flash out and tried a few different areas for placing it. I ended up putting it behind some of the branches of the bush next to where I was shooting and pointed it into the main area of the bush. I was going for a look as if they were in a forest and the sun was going down off to the right. It threw the long shadows on the ground and gave enough light to look like it was getting dark everywhere else. You may have heard me say in the past that shooting Legos is hard. Well, I was really pleased with this shot. It's my favorite Lego picture I have ever done. Plus, I got a chance to work on my lighting, which is a weakness of mine.

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Well, this theme ended up being pretty fun. I hope that you enjoyed what I posted, and stayed tuned to see what the theme is for next week.

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