fun – Deanne Dements Photography

The benefits of supporting friends and creativity…

I have totally enjoyed working with the trolls, they have allowed me to expand my creativeness. They have pushed me to execute some of my ideas that I had been trying to figure out for a couple of years. Many of those ideas came from the 52-week Challenge by Nicole Smith, Nicolsey Photography. I loved trying to come up with new ideas for the challenge, and the supportive conversations I would have with the other members of that group. The ideas were constantly flowing even if I could not totally figure out how to do it. I had quite the photo set up on my back deck but always knew that I wanted to move it back into my garage studio area. The back deck was too limiting even though it was convenient. I made the effort to use the photo studio area in the garage studio area this last year. Adjusting the height of the photo table, putting down flooring that is comfortable to stand on.

Another thing that has helped me with the photography has been the Current Class at the Bend Parks and Recreation. I have always had good balance but that really doesn’t stay unless you work at it constantly. The exercises in the pool are designed to improve and keep that balance and fitness intact. While photographing the gnomes and trolls I found myself constantly needing to step up on the little footstool to get the better shot or hanging snowflakes from the ceiling , stepping over it to adjust the scene, or moving it so I could bend down and pick up one of the Styrofoam snowballs off of the floor. All the while dancing on the floor to… Well Christmas music this time.
The thing is all of these things are easy to do simply because of the friends I have made over the years. From my little coffee group of online sellers, to the bigger group of people in the 52 week photo challenge, to the group of people in the pool who also like to go out to eat and hike. All of you have contributed to my health and enjoyment, in one way or another and I would like to Thank you for that….
So Thank You Friends….

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

Hello

Hello world and friends. I have been here before as a matter of fact this would be my third time trying a site of my own. Time has passed and I think I would like to try again. For the last 4+ years I have been participating in a challenge group run by one of my favorite Photographers Nicole Young /Nicolesy. I have learned a lot, mostly how to release my fun inner side…
I would also like to introduce some of my alter ego friends.

Starting with Pinx. Now Pink is not a color that I gravitate too. I certainly would not have picked a troll with pink hair, but he came in a load of stuff my friend and I purchased from another online seller. Once I removed the silly wings he began to shine in my photographs for the 2023 year 52 week challenge .

Having so much fun with Pinx I decided to add another Troll and searched Ebay for the right personality. Meet Aqua.

One of the challenges was reflections I had decided to introduce Aqua to the other members of the challenge group by making it look like Pinx was looking into a mirror and seeing his reflection with different colored hair.

It was a success, and took a while before some of the other members of the group realized that there were two of them.

Soon they began collecting pets which they called lizards.

Pinx, Poppa T, Aqua, and some of their pet lizards

A trip to the thrift store netted me another troll that was larger than the other two. He had silver hair and Poppa T was added to the tribe.
By the end of the 2023 year I had quite the collection of fun photographs using the trolls

My hope is that I can continue the fun that is photography with the blog.