Mermaids, Moana, Maui and more:
beached at Rock Hall, Christmas Eve
We set out to find sea glass at Rock Hall Maryland, a tiny town on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay.
We rode along the beach...
We took some selfies with friends...
Launched the canoe...
Wait... HEI HEI WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!
Well Tamatoa hasn't always been this glam, I was a drab little crab once...
We took some time to contemplate and appreciate...
Behind the Scenes
Photographing your toys... eh... collectibles... in a natural setting allows you to look at a familiar place from a different perspective.
Literally, six inches from the ground.
For these shots I had a short tripod to set the camera on. This made doing action shots (Legolas galloping through the surf on the palomino Johnny West horse Flame) easier; one finger on the camera shutter, one hand holding a bucket of water to fling at the horse's feet. (actually, about a cup will do).
The biggest issue was sticky dots that weren't sticky enough in sand and wet and cold to hold mermaids onto sea horses. We got a lot of wet mermaids. Also that peeved look on Legolas' face is because his horse fell over in the surf.
The packaging for the canoe claimed "canoe floats". It does indeed. Fortunately the wind was blowing toward the shore, otherwise I would have been in a wetsuit or wrangling fishing line attached to it.
As the sun lowered in the west, the lighting was fabulous... until you set a couple of characters in front of it and they turned into big black silhouettes. This can be solved by some sort of fill lighting (a flashlight even). I used the flash with a homemade diffuser; white closed cell foam bit over it. A piece of folded paper or tissues also works. And step back and use the zoom so the flash is farther away.
I used fence wire to hold a few of the models up, but it was too light and bendy. Heavier wire (along the lines of coat hangers) might work, or better yet, dowel rods jammed in the sand with fishing line (invisible) tying characters to the sticks. Paint the dowel rods green and you can do a green screen effect; shoot the background without characters, shoot with characters, then eliminate the green rods in Photoshop, layering that shot over the plain background shot.
Plush Maui is wonderfull except for his face design, so I have Photoshopped it various ways: redrawing it, or simply layering a shot from the film over it.
Tamatoa turned up as we dug for sea glass. These little crabs appear to be some sort of Asian crab, non-native, probably invasive. They were dug down at the high tide line in damp sand, and verrrrry slooooooooooow, as if hibernating. The upside down one looks like a female nursing an egg mass. We put them back.
The next step is mermaid saddles (aluminum foil, fence wire, Sculpey, glue, foam sheets, felt, and closed cell foam glitter letter of unusual size). It will be its own story.
Hank's zen garden has rock mandalas I painted on skipping stones from a lake in New York (when friends asked what they could bring me I said rocks). The rocks with words on them are from the Chesapeake Bay.
The words are Hawaiian:
Aloha is the all purpose word whose basic meaning is love.
Moana is ocean.
Hoe wa’a is paddler (like us and our kayaks).
Ohana you know if you paid any attention in Lilo and Stitch.
Mana is kind of Hawaiian for ‘use the Force Luke”… it’s spiritual energy or power.
Pono is doing the right thing.
Wa’a is canoe, specifically the sorts of outriggers used in Polynesia. In other places they are waka, vaka or va’a.
Wa’a kaulua is a big double hulled voyaging canoe like the ones we saw in Moana (the film) or on moana (the ocean) for thousands of years.
Aina is land, earth, environment.
Malama honua is caring for island earth.
Coming soon: he wa'a, he moku: from the Polynesian Voyaging Society, "the canoe is an island, the island is a canoe"... a way to visualize our "blue boat home, Planet Ocean, as having limited resources, like a boat or an island, and how do we manage those resources?
Literally, six inches from the ground.
For these shots I had a short tripod to set the camera on. This made doing action shots (Legolas galloping through the surf on the palomino Johnny West horse Flame) easier; one finger on the camera shutter, one hand holding a bucket of water to fling at the horse's feet. (actually, about a cup will do).
The biggest issue was sticky dots that weren't sticky enough in sand and wet and cold to hold mermaids onto sea horses. We got a lot of wet mermaids. Also that peeved look on Legolas' face is because his horse fell over in the surf.
The packaging for the canoe claimed "canoe floats". It does indeed. Fortunately the wind was blowing toward the shore, otherwise I would have been in a wetsuit or wrangling fishing line attached to it.
As the sun lowered in the west, the lighting was fabulous... until you set a couple of characters in front of it and they turned into big black silhouettes. This can be solved by some sort of fill lighting (a flashlight even). I used the flash with a homemade diffuser; white closed cell foam bit over it. A piece of folded paper or tissues also works. And step back and use the zoom so the flash is farther away.
I used fence wire to hold a few of the models up, but it was too light and bendy. Heavier wire (along the lines of coat hangers) might work, or better yet, dowel rods jammed in the sand with fishing line (invisible) tying characters to the sticks. Paint the dowel rods green and you can do a green screen effect; shoot the background without characters, shoot with characters, then eliminate the green rods in Photoshop, layering that shot over the plain background shot.
Plush Maui is wonderfull except for his face design, so I have Photoshopped it various ways: redrawing it, or simply layering a shot from the film over it.
Tamatoa turned up as we dug for sea glass. These little crabs appear to be some sort of Asian crab, non-native, probably invasive. They were dug down at the high tide line in damp sand, and verrrrry slooooooooooow, as if hibernating. The upside down one looks like a female nursing an egg mass. We put them back.
The next step is mermaid saddles (aluminum foil, fence wire, Sculpey, glue, foam sheets, felt, and closed cell foam glitter letter of unusual size). It will be its own story.
Hank's zen garden has rock mandalas I painted on skipping stones from a lake in New York (when friends asked what they could bring me I said rocks). The rocks with words on them are from the Chesapeake Bay.
The words are Hawaiian:
Aloha is the all purpose word whose basic meaning is love.
Moana is ocean.
Hoe wa’a is paddler (like us and our kayaks).
Ohana you know if you paid any attention in Lilo and Stitch.
Mana is kind of Hawaiian for ‘use the Force Luke”… it’s spiritual energy or power.
Pono is doing the right thing.
Wa’a is canoe, specifically the sorts of outriggers used in Polynesia. In other places they are waka, vaka or va’a.
Wa’a kaulua is a big double hulled voyaging canoe like the ones we saw in Moana (the film) or on moana (the ocean) for thousands of years.
Aina is land, earth, environment.
Malama honua is caring for island earth.
Coming soon: he wa'a, he moku: from the Polynesian Voyaging Society, "the canoe is an island, the island is a canoe"... a way to visualize our "blue boat home, Planet Ocean, as having limited resources, like a boat or an island, and how do we manage those resources?
