Explicit Lipstick Inside

Only yesterday we wondered if LEGO was crippling our future generations of Astronauts, Scientists and Female Pirates alike and we got some great reactions on all our social platforms.

Most (if not all) of you were pretty conviced the future of Planet Earth was not at risk, and we could count on the wisdom and imagination of our younger generation to take the dollhouses and spaceships into the future, regardless of gender.

One post went a few steps further and actually gave a very thorough walk-through of gender diversification throughout the history of this little brick we call minifig.

A post I could not let be hidden in the comments, and really needs it place here on the main page for all of you to enjoy.

A post by Serhat aka telefonfotografcisi:

" ... I believe that the Lego Group are also dealing with the same concern everyday, from a commercial point of view since their target sales heavily relies on the answer(s) to this question.

Since Lego produced the ancestors of today’s modern minifigures back in 1978, they used almost no features to distinguish the characters, rather than those basic hats for the stereotype male and ponytail hair for his female counterpart. They had identically smiling faces with black button eyes, and their skin color was chosen yellow on purpose so that it does not reflect any racial difference. (Note that only a decade back, the people were being killed on streets of US depending on their skin color. –maybe not very different than today..) This may be considered a very clever move for the company for many coming years.

But things started to change with the first Pirates theme (one of my all time favorites) released back in 1989. The figs were still those yellow guys (and a few gals) but since you could not think of any pirates without eye-patches and long beards (mascular reference, again), the faces began to change. The expression on their face was still that same euphoric smile, but now the men had beards and mustaches while the first female fig with lipsticks came into ranks. In a few years, they would start to differ in terms of facial expressions and this would spread in nearly all Lego themes, Castle and Town to just name a few.

But the female population were still short in number according to men. Think of all those knights, henchmen, cavalry, pirates and soldiers.. This was not a world for cute ladies! Except of course, the unmistakable “Maiden” of Castle series, the female forest ranger and the female pirate. You will see that these are still amongst the highest priced figs on the web if you can find them in good shape.

Even the Western series did not attempt to change the iconic yellow skin color in 1996 when they introduced the Indians (natives of America, not that of India) But in time, another iconic property of all figs would start to differ: Their age! Those tiny people were ageless for a long time, and now they started to show their experience of life with white hair and likes, while we were about to see the first children characters with shorter and unmovable leg parts in the coming years.

Yet, as always, what changed the game was again the commercial concerns. In 2003, Lego Group decided to release the NBA star players theme, an officially licensed one. Now we had figs that resembled the real players, and they had to introduce new skin colors to manage that. (Btw, need one of those heads to make my Bob Marley fig!) After that, Lego Group spread into many officially licenced themes ranging from Super Heroes to the Lord of the Rings, and inevitably new tones of colors spread amongst the figs, reflecting the variety of humanbeings in real life.

However, the subject was the gender inequality of minifigs, wasn’t it? The introduction of Collectable Series, which took many of us AFOLs back in the game, used the opportunity to fix the problem quite successfully. I did not personally count them but I’d guess at least 1/3 of them or more are females in each series. Add to that the female characters from licenced series (ah, the Wonder Woman!) and dedicated series such as Friends, now it seems a little more balanced, doesn’t it?

So, let’s go back to the original question and finally finish this unlikely history lesson: Is Lego trying to stereotype the minifig nation and favoring the macho male against the outnumbered females? I believe not. Because I really do not think of them as male or female characters when I shuffle up in my collection. I see them as representatives of real people, and just like in real life, they are humanbeings for me first... 

 Before being male or female, old or young, even hero or villain ..."



Thank you telefonfotografcisi for sharing this rich history with us, I really enjoyed it.


I did a quick count at the latest series 13 and I count actually 9 female species on first observation out of 15.  How many did you count ?

Parental Advice: LEGO inside.

Photo Credit: Fryd_Lego

The last few days my social network was buzzing with this great Parental Advice picture, popping up from all sides with a little thumbs up, big smile or just a simple so true ... focusing on the true positive message of creativity and imagination (at least that is how I read it) when we talk about doll houses and space ships alike.

When Fryd posted the image on red.it I am not sure he wanted to start the whole controversy about gender, just launched a hoax or genuinely wanted to share a picture from the 70's.

The buzz got quickly picked up in some other articles like this one here on IFL where the focus shifted really to the gender focus of the latest LEGO Friends series and includes a full featured video of Anita Sarkeesian giving a pink colored overview of the LEGO history since the early 70's including some great sets like Paradisa, Scala and Belleville.

If you have a few minutes to spare, the two video feeds are really worth while watching and reveals a world conspiracy of male domination in the sequel of the series (or just great selective editing skills of Anita ?) and turns LEGO into a dominating evil Big Inc. responsible for male domination.

I am not going to argue with Anita that LEGO has a male, testosterone filled side in some areas and there is a good amount of macho in some of the material shown (now who is the true heroine in The LEGO Movie ?) yet I never felt like LEGO was giving me an unbalanced world view dominated by male supremacy, merely giving me the opportunity to build spaceships and doll house alike.

Now, I may be biased, given that my gender is off the wrong side, but there are so many fantastic great female "legographers" out there that I am curious in your view points ?

Is it worth the discussion ?

Is LEGO crippling our future generation of scientists, astronauts and pirates alike ?

Have you ever considered not to purchase a LEGO set because the amount of male and female characters were not equal ?

Is LEGO stereotyping a whole generation, and we all should stop shooting with the bricks and move on to others like Hello Kitty to safeguard the next generations ?

Your Thoughts ?  

A Freezing Cold Gathering

A "wampaweekend" took place last weekend, it was another in a series of events created by a bunch of guys over at Instagram. The events are about toyphotographs and they take place on certain days with certain themes which are announced a few weeks before the events take place. The ethos on these events is refreshing, there are no judges, no points or rewards, it's not a contest. It's purely about having some fun with a pre-designated theme. You can determine the level of the challenge yourself, but you still won't win anything.

This one got started from a joke I made on a photo a few weeks ago. Some of the events were just one day long and I made a humorous remark that a full weekend would be bigger. I threw in the wampa because it rhymed with weeked. To my surprise, the guys took the joke on and invited me to be a guest host.

I've never really participated much on things like these, but this is different. I like the angle on these particular events very much (as in "no contest"), it should encourage all people to participate, young and old. If you have access to a camera and something even close to the theme in question to shoot, you're good to go. When the subject is so close to what I think dearly of (snow and Hoth), a world I've visited frequently with my camera, how could I ever refuse an invitation like this? In fact, it was an honor.

The weekend was a lot of fun and there were a good number of wampa photographs. I was told this was the biggest event yet. You can see them with the hashtag #wampaweekend on Instagram.

You might also like to check out the feeds of these Instagrammers for past and future events: @smokebelch2, @east_mountain, @brett_wilson and @zenith_ardor.

Oh, yes, I'm there, too: @avanaut.

Another Kind of Diary

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~ Pablo Picasso

This also applies to me and my photography.

I love to look back at my photos and think about where I took them and who was with me at the time. Each photo is an instant flash back to (mostly) wonderful memories. This past week on G+ I have been sharing the few Lego photos I took while in Iceland last year. Looking at them today takes me immediately back there and I experience the exhilaration over again.

For me photography has always been a form of documentation; be it my emotions, my family or an unusually viewpoint of a particular place. It may not seem like one, but my photography is a visual journal of my day to day life.

I have always travelled with my Lego mini figures and my photographs represent the places I have been. Since this is on a micro scale a specific place may be difficult to identify. As the colors and textures of places differ, it is interesting to see those differences in the final shots. This can be especially obvious when viewed as a group.

I am curious how you view your photography.

What role does it play in your life?
Is it a book in the making?
Is it a documentation of your everyday life?
Is it reaction to world events around you?
I wonder if +Me2 takes his Lego with him when he travels for business?

~ xxsjc

Iceland October 2013

Arches NP, Utah, September 2014

What a difference a year can make. 

Grateful to Big Inc.

I won't deny it has been a heady week and its time to come crashing back down to earth. But before I get mired down in the day to day of my life I want to take a moment to tell you all how grateful I am for the last week.

The week started with one of those days of a life time on my family road trip, many birthday wishes from my IG family and ended with another fun BrickCon with my photo buddies...it's been an amazing week by any measure.

Nestled in this already awesome week was lunch with Julie Broburg a Lego representative from the Mothership. Julie's job (as I understand it) is to act as a liaison to the AFOL community in all it's forms, including us legographers. I find it amazing that there is a corporation out there that is interested in what their fans are doing and are willing to support, nurture and learn from that community. I know I can be very wary of Big Inc., but it is hard to disparage a company that values it's fans as much as Lego does.

So thank you Julie for all you do for all the AFOL's out there. If you get a chance to meet Julie in her travels make sure you go up and say: "Hi" and be sure to introduce yourself as a legographer.

Now I have one more thing to be grateful for: I am grateful to be photographing a great product and being a part of the Lego family in my own small way.

~ xxsjc

Fairy Godmother Julie

ps. I am pretty sure +Me2 had other ideas planned for todays post, but since he got caught up at his own Big Inc, you got me instead. We will pick up with our "Why" series later this week. Cheers!

Legojacker

The Poetry of the Streets

There is 

a thrill to walking 

the empty city

at dawn,

plastic hidden,

feeling the cold

biting your neck

racing the morning light

as it creeps over the tops 

of the buildings.

There is a quiet 

that follows

as you slip into

dirty laneways 

dripping with 

brightly coloured 

street art,

and walls 

plastered 

in the scrawl

of invisible souls. 

Choose a spot.

Choose a figure.

Shoot.

Repeat.

At first

you may not see

the poetry 

of the streets 

alive with toys, 

but then it comes, 

tiny drifting souls

echoing desperate 

cries and laughter

among the everyday debris. 

Solitary 

back alley visits

shooting

unfeeling plastic

by the gram

to feel 

a shared humanity

in a world 

turning faceless

by the second.

~ Legojacker

Avanaut

"The First Attempt" by Avanaut

Why do I take photographs of Lego? That is a question that took me by surprise a couple of weeks ago. I realized I had never asked myself that question before. Finding the answer was not easy, and it took a brief conversation with my wife for me to see it.

I am photographing Lego because I am a never-was movie director making a living outside the movie industry. That's what my wife said, and it pretty much sums it up. See, I always loved movies. Star Wars, obviously, was huge, but many others as well, classics and contemporary. As a kid I made some movies myself with my dad's Super-8 film camera, but film was expensive and my dad did not allow me to hack the camera's filmport to produce a widescreen format picture. My movies were not very good; a widescreen wouldn't have improved them, but still. I would build miniature sets and models to shoot, but the miserable camera could not focus on anything, since it had no macro. I grew up watching great movies and reading all about them. As a teenager I subscribed to Starlog, Cinemagic, and Cinefantastique. Cinefex, Premiere and Empire came along a little later. I'm soaked with that stuff; it's in my DNA. I sometimes dream in 2.39:1.

That was a long time ago.

When I stumbled into photographing Lego Star Wars in 2009, I quickly connected to those times when I dreamed of making movies. I soon incorporated into the photos many of the cinematic ideas I had toyed with in my youth: widescreen, smoke, aerial particles, snow, blizzards, tight closeups and stories -- the short stories that I like to write to go with the photos. I think this through via cinema; even my "Leftovers & Alternatives" album in Flickr is allegoric to a DVD "deleted scenes" extra. Lego is a perfect medium for all this. It's playful, and there's so much to choose from. You can have a minifigure on a piece of a coloured paper and still make a strong photo with that; yet there's everything from a coffee cup to the Death Star to add, if you like.

This soon became a sort of creativity outlet, a free turf to express ideas I could not use in my day job as an illustrator. I see my photographs as single-frame plays I can write, produce, direct and shoot, but with characters and concepts I grew up with. In a way, I'm exploring an unfulfilled career path, but with Lego and present day tools, like the DSLR camera. It's old but it's new. It's perfect!

~ Vesa Lehtimäki

"Breaking in the Tauntaun (Revised & Rejected) by Avanaut 

"Last Ship to Rendezvous Point" by Avanaut

LEGO Inc.

As most of you know Me2 and Crew won the fantastic The LEGO Movie Scandinavian Master Builder Challenge organized by the great folks over at Warner Bros and LEGO and as part of winning this epic challenge, Me2 and Crew got invited to visit some awesomeness in LEGO land.

Signing in to visit the top secret production plant where LEGO is born.

And awesomeness it was.

The crew signed in to visit the top secret production plant and got a guided tour (#nopictures) into the nirvana of LEGO, Prod. KOM One, the Billund Production Plant.

A most amazing tour that just gave a fantastic insight in the clutch power and drive for quality which truly represents the company motto det bedste er ikke for god, or the best is just not good enough. A motto introduced by the founding father Ole Kirk Christansen a good 80 years ago and it still hold strong today.

The exclusive LEGO Ideas House ...

Our guided VIP tour continued to the LEGO Idea House, giving us an exclusive insight in the history of the Company.
From the wooden ducklings and fire trucks over the plastic cars to the brick.
The brick which is the cornerstone of the LEGO world.
A brick which did not change fundamentals since its patent on January 28, 1958.

... giving fantastic insights in a long and rich history ...

While our time was limited in the LEGO Idea House and we most probably could have spent a few more hours discussing the rich past of this fantastic company (yes, we are biased) I do feel confident we are contributing with our photography (or should I say legography) to the next chapter of the rich history of the LEGO Company, one picture at a time ...

A history of being Stuck in Plastic ...

Me2

How a Lego Photo is Born

My son and I were fooling around with lego the other day and looking through his Master Builder Academy books and I came across this mini build for a cool camera. Needless to say, I whipped one up pronto.  It immediately reminded me of Weegee, so I made him too. Now if you're going to make a Speed Graphic camera and a figure who looks like Weegee out of Lego, then the next logical step is to set up murder scene.

...and that is how a lego photo is born.  

I'm sure this is going to lead somewhere interesting, I hope you will stick around to find out where.  

- xxsjc 

Winning the Lottery

I'm sure for most people winning the lottery conjures up images of piles of money but for a fan of Lego it means scoring a rare set at regular price.

A few weeks ago I tried to purchase set #21110 The Research Institute and set #21109 The Exo Suit and found out that they were either "Sold Out" or "temporarily out of stock" on the Lego web site. They were not to be found at either of my local Lego stores; in fact they were going for double and triple their original asking price on the secondary market.

Aggggghhhhhh

Well, who should come to my rescue but my daughter, Sierra. My daughter is amazing. While I have coped with the excess of Lego in my house by photographing it, she went and got a job at our local Lego Store. This has both it's pluses and minuses, trust me.

First she found set #21110 at our local toy store Math 'n Stuff. I love Math 'n Stuff because they sell Lego, they have an amazing set-up at our local BrickCon and they often have older sets at regular price. The staff is always friendly and did I mention they are only two blocks away? Sierra happened to be in Math n' Stuff last week to get a new puzzle and spied a case of #21110 behind the counter. One thing led to another and before I knew it I had purchased The Research Institute. It seemed there was hope after all!

Yesterday Sierra came to me and told me that her store was getting in a big Lego shipment and that the Exo Suit was listed on the manifest. The hunt was on! I wasn't taking any chances on this one. We arrived at the store at opening but alas they had not had a chance to unpack the shipment. We decided not to hover and wandered around the mall. Before we knew it Sierra received a text from Sean, back at the store, that he had found the sets and they were waiting for us.

Woooooo hooooo

Seriously I felt like I had just won the lottery. I'm pretty sure buying Lego shouldn't engender this kind of emotional response in an adult. But that is my reality.

~ xxsjc

How far have you gone to score that hard to find set?
What set did you miss that you still regret?

My apologies for not having an image that is more appropriate. But life is moving pretty fast right now. Hopefully I will be more on point in future posts. 

I'm Fiddling While Rome Burns

As I watch world events unfold in the media I continue to take and edit photographs of toys. This feels a little bit like playing the fiddle while Rome burns.

I have no answers to the many crises that face the world right now...all I know is that it all seems to be building at a rather quick pace. Yes, I do know that our world has always been fraught with a certain about of war and conflict - but right now there seems to be a heightened sense of impending doom. It feels as if we are poised at the edge of something ominous and dangerous.

Is it right to be spending energy taking toy photographs and trying to creating art that makes people smile? Am I turning a blind eye to the elevated levels of human misery on this planet because it is easier?

I have no answers to anything right now. I am not looking for justification to my behavior, but I do wonder if my time could be better spent on a worthier endeavor.

~ xxsjc

Since the toy community spans the globe, do you think about your internet friends who may be in living in danger? 
Does local or world events effect your work? 

Suspension of Disbelief

Reality vs the suspension of disbelief is a very strange phenomena in the Lego universe. It's seemingly arbitrary rules continue to amaze me.

Yesterday I posted this photo and the talented +Gordon Webb commented "Great shot Shelly. The pink strat is upside down, unless the squid is a lefty, and plays like Hendrix. :)"

We are willing to accept a guitar playing squid and singing mermaids but not the guitar in a non standard position. The last time I looked, the definition of a guitar is a six or 12 string instrument, not three. What kind of instrument is this really? Does it matter? Is that kind of attention to detail necessary?

There is a trend within the Lego community for an AFOL (or TFOL) to create a signature figure that represents themselves. I myself have a fairly distinct red headed figure I have used for well over a year that is my Lego alter ego. (She even has her own Lego alter ego.) This figure looks nothing like me...nothing. I was talking to a woman the other day who I have know for a few months. She met me first through Instagram. She told me that on our first in person meeting she was very disappointed to find out I looked nothing like my mini figure; where was my pink hair!?!

People take great pride in recreating famous land marks, album covers, particular cars and just about anything else you can think of in the human world with their Lego. In fact many of Lego's most iconic sets are based on something in the human world: The VW Bug, The Taj Mahal, The London Bridge, The  Lego UniMog ...the list goes on and on.

But where is the fun in that? How come we can't make cars that grow flowers or crazy houses that twist and turn, bridges that don't conform to logic or create a mini figure that looks like who we want to be? Why can we suspend our disbelief about a talking squid and some mermaids but not with an upside down guitar? For all I know Squidward taught Jimmi Hendrix everything he knew about guitar playing. Because in MY Lego world anything is possible.

If you have a Lego mini figure representing you, does it look like you?
When you create with Lego do you work from photographs or from your imagination?

~ xxsjc

PS - I hope you will check out Gordon's work on G+ or on Instagram. He creates wonderful, fabulous, unique mech's - each a thing of beauty that has no basis in reality.

And the winner is ...

 

During the awesome madness of indypendence day on IG,  we got word from the awesome folks over at LEGO and Warner Bros that the Awesome After Party™ made it to the finals and was selected as the number one also know as the winner of The LEGO Movie Scandinavian Master Builder Challenge.  

To quote Gitte Bloch Eskildsen, senior brand manager, LEGO group: "The Awesome After Party is one of the most impressive and creative LEGO houses I have ever seen built by a LEGO fan and fully captures the essence and fun of THE LEGO Movie™ and what LEGO is all about, namely imagination, fun and creativity ..."

And fans we are here at stuckinplastic of all things LEGO ! 

Now we could not have won this challenge without all of you and your fantastic support in making all of this happen.  To celebrate the awesomeness of all of this we have decided to not just give one, two or three signed prints away of the Awesome After Party™ but five exclusive signed prints.

Handpicked by an innocent child from a planet far far away, here are the five lucky winners:

Ella N. Big thanks for tricking her daddy in going all in on FB to get the vote out, a signed print is on its way. 

Goedele D. from Belgium for outing herself on FB.

Lyn M. Thanks for doing all the great stuff both on the interweb and IG.

And last but not least Anna G. from D. in W. for being such a great support and also outing herself on FB. 

Number five will be handpicked out of all the fantastic IG comments you guys and gals have been giving us !

Time to get ready for the next crazy adventure™

Me2

PS. We will upload the images on Flickr as well.
PPS. How many times was the word awesome mentioned here on stuckinplastic in the last 5 posts ?

Who you gonna call ?

Tomorrow the Me2 Crew will be crashing the awesome after party in the Central Station of Stockholm (and guess who we called to drive us to the the party ?)

If you want to meet Me2, the Me2 Crew and some other infamous celebrities you are more than welcome to join us in Stockholm Central Station where LEGO and Warner Bros are celebrating the release of the best movie ever on Bluebeard and other related devices as of 10 AM CET.

We have some secret gifts for those of you who make it to Central Station and get a picture posted on Instagram tagged with the awesome #TLMscandininavia5 tag and Me2 included.

But no despair for those of you who cannot make it to Stockholm, Oslo or Copenhagen in the coming days as the folks at LEGO and WB have created an awesome Facebook App for all of you to let you vote remote (and even make you win a personalized print).

Here are the 5 easy steps (and you even get a fantastic sneak preview of the build):

1. Hit the link here: Facebook App
2. When asked to first like the WB homepage, just hit like.
3. Then vote for the awesome after party by selecting #TLMscandininavia5 and giving it your Facebook vote. So the fifth picture it is :-)
4. Tell your friends, kids and grandparents alike to do the same.
5. Say done here in the comments (or on IG) and you enter into the draw.
 
You see how easy that was ?

See you soon !
Me2 & Crew

Work in progress

I have been very silent the last few weeks both here and on Instagram.

The reason for this was not that I preferred cooking or laundry above my duties as a Sunday photographer (guess what day it is today), nor was I caught up completely in long night meetings with Darth Inc (there were a few of those as well) hoping I could trade the corporate world for a more bohemian lifestyle .

No, the reason was from a very different and much more artistic nature.

We got an invitation to participate in an artistic challenge here in Scandinavia and the last few weeks have been full of designing, building, rebuilding, shooting and reshooting an epic adventure which took all our creative energy and focus.

And yes, the hard work and focus did pay off and we made it to the ten finalists (more on this tomorrow). 

If you are in Stockholm on Tuesday (24/06), do pass by the Central Station and say Hiya !

And now back to putting the last bricks in the shipping container and making sure we are all set for the exposition coming your way.

Stay tuned !
Me2 

The Fallacy of Validation

"Validation is for parking" ~ from Steal Like an Artist

This made me laugh, because it's so true! I often see people grousing that their posted photos aren't getting enough likes or comments on Instagram. Another popular complaint is that their photos never get featured by any of the toy groups.  All I can think to say to this is that you shouldn't look to Instagram, Flickr, Google, Tumblr or anything else for validation. Because you aren't going to get it.

What people like or don't like is a very fickly enterprise. It is based on their own tastes coupled with their own experiences and occasionally these will intersect with what you are creating. Think of it like a vin diagram with a very small sliver of overlap. Whether or not what you are creating is good enough, has nothing to do with it. Being good is only half of the equation.

Oh did I mention luck is the other half? It's that weird intangible that separates those that get recognized and those that toil away in obscurity. Life is fickle and art is a temperamental task master. So don't get frustrated, roll with it, and make some art. Trust me, you will feel better.

So get out your toys, have some fun, take some pictures and look for your validation inside yourself. If it makes YOU happy, then it is good enough.

Did you take any toy photography pictures this weekend like Me2 did?
When was the last time you got a parking ticket?

~ xxsjc

I've bored you all enough with my philosophical ramblings. The rest of this week I will be posting on technique. I didm't play with my camera this weekend, but I did play with my printer. This was almost as good!

Sometimes a "like" is more than just a "like".

I know there is some controversy on Instagram about "likes" and when to give them. I have plenty of friends among my followers who never like any photos and are quite proud of this fact. When they tell me this I just look at them quizzically and wonder "Why?" Why do you even bother participating in this community?

I will freely admit I like almost every photo I run across. Maybe this means my "likes" are meaningless, but they aren't to me. I am not liking them for there stellar quality or there creativity (even though that is often the case), I am also liking them for the effort. I know how hard it is to get up each morning and be creative. Some days you are more successful than others; and to me it's the effort that matters most.

I have a friend who works in public relations and one of her duties for her clients is to tell them they are wonderful…every day. Artists are often in a crisis of self confidence, self doubt comes with the territory. Putting your work in the public to be judged is hard on the psyche. Sometimes I want to add her to my payroll so I can have her do this same service for me on a daily basis. I guess I will settle for our occasional beer and pep talks.

So to everyone who shares their images publicly, I applaud you. You are doing the work and it isn't easy. Know I will always be there to like your photo and cheer you on because we all need a cheering section.

Are you a "happy liker" like me?
Do you have a cheering section to help you get over the rough patches?

My best friend Kitty with her dogs Kipper and Minty. 

It's not all about the art.

Sometimes I think the goal is to make a great emotionally packed image and sometimes I don't. If it was all about the perfect photo then why are we sharing on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and Google+? These are all social media sites aimed at connecting people with like interests. People you know and people you don't know…yet.

I recently received in the mail a very special print from +Me2. It is my favorite image of his (amongst many) and I will cherish it for many years. He is someone I wouldn't even know existed if it wasn't for this amazing thing we call the internet. This past weekend I went out photographing with good friends, all of whom I have met through the power of social media. A few weekends ago I met a couple of lovely Instagramers from a town three hours away and because of mutual interests became fast friends.

Suffice it to say, my life is filled with new, old and future friends met through my interactions on multiple social media platforms.

I may not be able to sell a photograph to save my soul, but I know my life is all the richer for the friends and connections I have made all over this planet. My only goal now is to make enough money so I can take a world tour and meet everyone in person.

Now that would be a gift of inconceivable value.

What is most important to you as you play on your various social media sites? 
Why are you participating? 
What does it mean to you?

~ xxsjc

Now if only Me2 would drop by the blog soon, I am starting to get maudlin. I dread how far I might sink tomorrow.   

What Is Your Inspiration?

Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information. – Man Ray

I could spend my time explaining photography technique, talking camera gear or trading tips on editing apps…but I think a more interesting question is why do we (all of us toy photographers) take photographs of Lego mini figures.

I did not grow up with the toy, it is not a part of my history, it is not a big part of my cultural heritage. In fact I am probably one of the most inept brick builders on the planet. Think Emmet at the beginning of the Lego movie. My greatest skill I bring to my family's Lego obsession (their's not mine) is my impeccable sorting skills.

So what is so attractive about these little plastic friends? Is it our ability to project our own thoughts and dreams on the many different characters created? Is it a need to revisit our child hood and rediscover the joy of play? Is it sheer boredom? Is it a release from the stresses and pressures of life? Is it simply proximity and easy access?

What is your inspiration? What keeps you motivated and moving forward photographically?

Once you know this, life will not be able to side track you, no matter how hard it tries.

~ xxsjc

K. I. S. S.

K. I. S. S. stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid".

I was reminded of that simple phrase when +Christoffer Östberg posted this photo of Embo to G+ today. When you are editing photos on an iPad or iPhone it is so convenient to whip out an effects app to create a little mystery or a little sparkle.

It was inspiring to hear Christoffer say this mysterious effect was simply the smoke rising from a recently extinguished match. It was great to see him take advantage of the macro format as well as the unpredictable element of the rising smoke.

So not only did I walk away with a great reminder of one of the basic tenants of photography, I was also inspired to try something new.

Oh…and did I mention that I now have a serious case of mini figure envy.

~ xxsjc