Tag: family

expanding my photo ideas with new props

My housemate Susan sells clothing patterns online in her Ebay store… She is always on the hunt for more patterns to list, which usually results in shopping trips for me to expand my photo prop collections. Last week she found large collection of patterns for sale locally on Facebook Marketplace and we went to check the collection out. She bought all of the patterns and as we talked with the lady we found that we had a lot of things in common…. and that the she had several things that she was going to send on to the thrift stores would I be interested in them. The answer was “SURE I could do something with the stuff….” a couple of bags and a box later I had some interesting things that could show up in my photographs…. These tarnished silver plate creamers and sugar were part of the collection. I usually avoid things that are shiny and reflect … well…. Me photographing it. I loved the detail of the set and that afternoon I tried to photograph them with some flowers…. but it was hot in the studio the flowers wilted quickly as did I.

This is probably the best of that photo shoot and there I am reflecting in all three wearing a bright red shirt…. I didn’t like the tablecloth background there were too many flowers so you couldn’t see the creamers or the sugar bowl. I did decide to start over the next morning in the coolness of my studio.

Thinking about that quick shoot the day before I decided to change things up. Use one of the photo backgrounds I had picked up last year. Use the off-white fabric I had picked up at a garage sale a month ago. Grab some of the 2x4s and 2x6s that I had painted earlier this spring and use them under or on top of the fabric.
Grab a couple of my floral frogs. One home made from chicken wire and the other belonging to my mom. This was my basic starting point.

Before going out to my studio I had noticed these books that are some of my favorite reference books. I grabbed them put them in the basket with the camera equipment I wanted use. I love these books because they give me ideas on how to accomplish what I want with my own flowers, vases and other objects that could be used to make the photograph mine. I also love our local public Library where I can check out these books and read them, then decide to purchase them for my own collection. (There is another one on the way to me, that I ordered after finishing it and returning the original to the library).

With the inspiration of the books I cast about in my studio area for something that would go with the creamers and sugar bowl. I found this broken and chipped teacup and two of the swans in my small swan collection inspired by a couple of swans I had gotten from my grandmas and moms’ collection.

Now to arrange them.
And then to go collect new flowers from my own yard…

All of these books used fruits and vegetables in many of their arrangements. So the strawberries were a first collection… and I could eat them as I was working because I have more in the garden. Then came the long salvia stems and the thyme sprigs. The very hardy rose was next with its small open blooms that scattered on the table, and the violas were last.

I am much happier with these photos that I took the time and thought into arranging. I was hard stopping but well ….. The temp in the studio was heating up to the upper 80’s. We still have some more insulation to install and to get a ceiling put up. I would also like to make a better hanging frame to put the background on. Something that is easier to put the background on and stretch it out so that the fabric is not wavy. PVC frame should work. Lord knows one of these days I will climb on top of the table trying to make that background look just right and I will tumble off….
Could I do better? Yep. But that is for another shoot with different flowers…and props…

Inspiration from the thrift stores

I find my best photography props at the local thrift stores. I rarely buy new unless what I want cannot be found in the thrift stores. I am always open to a trip to the thrift store for whatever catches my eye. A couple weeks ago one of the pool pals said I want to go thrifting with you, I need some things for an art project I will be working on. So we set a date of Thursday, next week. My housemate Susan, Robin, and I descended onto the first of two shops. Each with a mission. My plan is to find things to photograph. Glass bottles always catch my eye, especially this shape. I am always looking for good vases with a strong shape and colors, that don’t compete with my flowers. I saw this brown and gold vase filled with Black Eyed Susan flowers, or Sunflowers, maybe some dahlias in orange colors. in my basket it went no hesitations. I tooled through another isle and found some photo gear. A couple lighting tripods, one with the umbrella and lighting assembly. both of those went into the basket, with some back and forth thought. The whole assembly was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but ultimately much cheaper than if I ordered it online. I only needed the umbrella to replace one I bent… but….. I always can use more lighting options.
Next I found this galvanized metal lantern. I visualized it with one of my cream colored pillar candles in it. Surrounded with flowers and maybe some greenery.

Into the basket it went. Time for checkout and time to go home. Only I missed my turnoff at the new interchange system and ended up going to Redmond. Susan and I checked a couple of thrift stores there, but there was nothing that caught my eye… sometimes it happens. by the time we got home the fog had rolled in and I was not inspired to go play with my new items.
The next day dawned chilly and foggy but I was inspired to go play with my new items. I grabbed up the battery powered pillar candles and some of my fake silk flowers and started. First challenge was that my candles did not fit inside the lantern. Well that is a bummer. Will probably need to go find some shorter ones. Later.

digging into the fake flower bins and checking out the cabinet with my vases and jars, gave me more options to play with. each click of the camera or movement of something sparked another idea and back into my stash of props. a couple trips into the house brought out more items

By the end of the day, I was happy with what I had , but?? I noticed a big open area on the right side of the shot and thought I needed to add something in that spot. So I went out and shot it again with some of my other vases. But still….. Not right. I pulled the original vase and started re arranging things…..

finally, I got the arrangement better. But??? What if ?

The next day I pulled the glass bottles and added the fairy lights I changed the angle of the studio lights and turned some off

Then I dug into my bin of silk flowers and pulled out some lilacs. Much better. Not perfect but…. Well maybe I go out and shoot it again tomorrow.

My Photo studio needs a bit of reorganization, Again.

My Studio is the victim of many different projects, because well at one time it was an unfinished 2 car garage. It really could use a ceiling. But that is another project for a later date. My housemate and I had bought some of those interlocking mats for the floor and while they were nice there were not enough for the room. Then we found a really good deal on Marketplace and bought 20 more. They were slightly different but went together with the original ones, okay. Still though there were not enough. This if a 500 sq ft room, and the hard cement floor is cold…


This summer I had several things I wanted painted or stained including some boards for my photography to use as props and stands and when finished everything got shoved back into the studio in the unused area. Eventually some of the painted blocks 2×4’s and 2×6’s made their way to the actual photo area, and I have used them. They work great for elevation changes. Last month we found on Marketplace 20 more of those interlocking mats. When we got them home, we realized that they were thicker than the original mats. That meant reorganizing all of the mats in front of the photo area so that the thicker mats were there and the others were covering more of the high use areas of the floor. I began pulling up the thinner mats in the photo area and piling them around. I moved my rolling rack that was mostly filled with photo props and fabric backgrounds and tried to put some of the thinner mats there against the large garage door. They were too big. So after a day of trying to organize the floor I quit and moved on to more projects. With all of these projects and others inside the house that meant moving stuff from in the house out to the studio, things are starting to pile up in the studio. There are little trails to the photo area, the freezers and to the door. Another find last week on Marketplace we got 20 more of the interlocking mats only these were 1ft X 1ft. I decided that those would work under the rolling rack but hadn’t gotten to it. A friend had asked if I would photograph a couple of her gnomes and I jumped at the chance it sounded like a lot of fun. I got them last night went out to my photo area and well couldn’t get to it. There are stacks of various different sized interlocking mats there are painted 2x4s and 2x6s there is a cabinet I removed from the house, there are new bins that needed filling with some of the stuff I had collected to photo, and there are other cube units that never found a home. For my photo project I wanted hanging snowflakes but in order to get that I had to move a light above the photo table.
So the organizing began. the rolling rack got moved and the new small tiles installed, the empty bins were filled up and labeled with subject matter and put back in the rolling rack that was back in its home. The cabinet was now in a corner and a cube shelf unit was also with it. More of the thinner mats were pulled up and the thicker mats were put down. The light above the photo table found a new home lighting up the area around the rolling rack and I have a 8 ft long 1×2 board hung from the ceiling with cup hooks so I can hang snowflakes

and I got the background changed moved the white down and tracked down my snowballs.

I will start shooting the gnomes Tuesday, I need to find some ski’s

Flat Fire threat and I am freaking out

Flat Wild Fire threat and I have been Freaking out.
We are NOT in the evacuation zones, not even in the get ready, But I know how fast things can change. One hot ember and the game changes …. When the Flat Fire started Thursday, I saw the smoke column and realized that it was around the old town of Geneva. Knowing that there have been many fires in that area I knew that the fire would be fast and hot burning through light fuels. By Friday it took off as I expected, but I did not expect it to triple in size. On the way home from Bend I thought what if this really does head to my area, I need a plan. It is about 20 +/- from my home and has to cross though some rough terrain farm fields and a highway. Then more canyon BLM areas. but it is that sneaky hot ember I worry about. The thing is I have 4 vehicles to move, and which vehicle are we not going to move if things go bad. So I came up with a plan, if we do end up in an evacuation level 1 get ready, we will take the vintage motorhome and move it to a safe spot in town. (If need be, we can live in it….) Then come back and start getting ready for the next level of evacuation….. Hoping and praying it doesn’t get that far. This morning, I noticed that the deck had a lot of fine white ash from the fire…it looked like we had had a light snow, but I knew better. Time to make sure that we could move the vintage motorhome if we did go into a level one… We haven’t started that motorhome since we parked it in the new shed and when I tried to start it NOTHING…. At the same time I was dismantling my sprinkler system and manually trying to get my flowerbeds watered, finding out why some of the areas in my flowerbeds were not getting watered. Trying to change out sprinkler heads and faucet connectors….and making sure that leaky hoses were getting water to the waterlines…. and I was moving little things that could be fire hazards if an ember were to land in it and trying to move bigger things like the older Subaru which also hadn’t been moved in about 4 months. The older Subaru also didn’t start… and trying to get an update on the fire which is now over 18,000 acres but the web sites are still saying 3,300. The evacuation levels have changed, and the fire is within 10 miles of my home. Again, a long way away, but… things are not going right and I can’t get current information. My housemate has gone to Redmond and picked up a newer battery for the RV and some 20 ft jumper cables, I am running around trimming flower seed heads because they are within 4 ft of the house…. pulling weeds that have outlived their usefulness as a green fire resistive plant. Doing the watering the best I can with a system that works for general watering but not so much fire protection. I need to get the humidity up around the house. I photographed around the house showing areas cleared of brush and weeds around the base of the house later in the afternoon….. I have done what I can and decided that I could photo the beautiful sunset. Because what the smoke gives us is beautiful sunsets.

So now I am calm I have done what I can and hope that the fire stays contained up north of us. It is still just over 18,000 acres and growing.
Except… I got a call from a neighbor who briefly talked to the local Fire Chief. If things continue as they have the fire has the potential to move into the southern end of our fire district maybe bypassing our neighborhood but possibly moving into another neighborhood I had lived in for several years. I know that one hot ember is all it will take while the fire might move southwest the ember could float anywhere should the wind come up. A trip to Walmart and I came home with more garden hoses.
That was yesterday the fire has is now nearly 22,000 acres and we are as ready as we can be. I have watered my place around the house and done my best to raise the humidity level, hopefully slowing the chance of a fire at my place. I have made sure my important papers are in a quick to grab fire safe, and the motorhome is ready to go at the level 1 get ready be aware, and I have prayed to Mother Nature to keep the fire in its current boundaries….
To be clear this is not my first fire here in Central Oregon, and even to myself it is funny to watch me freak out, but I do it anyway. When I came here in the early 90’s we had a fire just half a mile from the house we were building and then the big Aubry Hall fire hit that summer. When I moved here permanently, I joined the local Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter. I have worked on many fires both brush and structure, and I know the game…. Still I Freak OUT