Holy Water? My arse!

8 shots,  imported and cropped in Lightroom, focus stacked in Photoshop

Wee Men

Wee Nun Tries Dating (single shot)

I have neglected my blog for way too long and as a way back into it again, I thought I'd try to put together a post about how (and maybe why) I shoot "wee men." In Irish and Scots slang, "wee" simply means little or small. I got into the Wee Men through the fantastic work of Slinkachu; if you haven't checked out his work, you should really do so.

Gear
I shoot with my Nikon D800. I like the resolution on this beast and it seems to do pretty well with macro photography. That said, any DSLR that you can stick a macro lens on will do the job for you.
I use a Nikkor 60mm f2.8 lens, mainly because it is the only macro lens I own - macro means it will have a much closer minimum focusing distance that most lenses which lets you get in close to small subjects.
A tripod
A remote or cable release ( nothing fancy needed - my third party cable release cost £10 from amazon)
Some wee men - you can buy these from Amazon (search for model railway figures) or from sites like Priesar or Gaugemaster in the UK. I find HO gauge works best but there are other sizes/gauges available.
Agave syrup. This is invaluable for getting little figures to stand upright and washes right off afterwards. I tend to dip my wee men's feet in it when needed.

Setting Up
I do some table-top shots and some outside in various locations such as streets, parks, the garden etc.
The key to really good wee men shots is to have a narrative in the shot - a story; something that says something or means something. Not having a narrative will still produce decent shots but they will lack either the impact or interest of shots that tell a story.

How To Shoot Flag Protests (single shot)

My advice would be to have an idea for the narrative before you start to shoot.

Forensic Investigation (single shot)

Shooting
Set up your scene, focus on the central figure(s) and away you go. With macro lenses you get very shallow depth of field so take account of this, or shoot for focus stacking later in post processing.

Focus stacking is what I prefer. This means using one single focus point and taking a number of shots with the focus point set on different parts of the scene.

Choppers (6 shots, focus stacked)

Post Processing

For single shots, there's very little that I do other than cropping and boosting the colour saturation and perhaps adding a slight vignette, all done in Lightroom 5

For focus stacked shots, the process looks like this:

1. Import RAW files into LR5 and crop, adjust etc one shot as needed then sync across all shots
2. Export files as either tiff or jpeg
3. Open Photoshop (CS5, CS6 or CC)
4. Go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack
5. Use the browse window that pops up to select all of your stacked tiff/jpegs and open them
6. Once all the files have loaded, select them all by control/clicking each one in turn
7. Go to Edit > Auto Align Layers and select "auto"
8. Wait for photoshop to align the layers then Edit > Auto Blend Layers and choose "stack images"

Vatican Makes Surprise U-Turn (12 shots, focus stacked)

Once this has finished, flatten your image
I would make any final adjustments at this stage then sharpen the image by adding a new layer, selecting the high pass filter and setting it to a value of around 10-11 and then using "overlay" as the blend mode.
Flatten the image again, and Bob is (as they say) your uncle.

2013 365 - 32

Things are picking up a little after the past few weeks and a little (very little) mojo seems to be returning. A couple of kicks in the teeth this week; couldn't take up an offer to go to a music festival (sick child) and another roller derby promo shoot was cancelled at late notice. However, I plugged away and the wee men were out this week as well as a lot more shooting with the fisheye.

5/08/13

Absolutely loved this shot from last night's wrestling in Antrim. All the elements I've been trying to catch came together at the right time. For the first time I was able to use a three light set-up for the wrestling thanks to the balcony' two speedlights on the balcony to cross-light the ring and one on the camera for fill. That's one going off behind Eamon as he launches himself off the corner post.

6/08/13

I'd promised myself that the wee men would get an airing this week and took them out to the garden and greenhouse. Here they are harvesting the shallots.

7/08/13

This is such a simple shot. It's a weed growing in the middle of the back garden. 60mm macro lens and the whole backdrop blurs into green.

8/08/13

The wee men again. It is sad to note that it is now Augusts and my tomatoes are still green. A couple are threatening to ripen but it's pretty much wall-to-wall green tomatoes in the greenhouse.

9/08/13

Donaghadee lighthouse, shot with the 8mm fisheye and given some faux-hdr processing to bring up the sky.

10/08/13

A bit of fun with the fisheye as well. Can you tell that I'm loving this lens? Depth of field is amazing and the distortion can work very well as a creative tool.

11/08/13

Yep, more fisheye fun, this time at the top of Victoria Square in Belfast. Went there to try some shots of the roof of the viewing gallery and then accidentally put my hand in a shot (not hard to do with a lens with a 180 degree angle of view) and had an idea to try this.

2013 365-24

Back to basics this week, and it looks very like summer has been and gone here. The rain descended yet again, forcing the cancelation of at least one outdoor photo project.

10/06/13

I did the third in a series of "bump" shoots this evening with the amazing Ell'o and Pier. We had planned to visit Belfast's Botanic Gardens this evening; I had anticipated sunshine but got overcast and cloudy instead. I ended up using some flash for a dramatic effect (?) and can't say i'm totally happy with some of the results. We had about four different set-ups around Botanic, this was outside the Palm House and I picked it because it's a good shot of Ell'o's bump.

11/06/13

Responsible pet ownership, rural style. I was going to say "Ahoghill style" or "Tyrone style" but chickened out in case I offended anyone reading my posts who lived in either of these places.

12/06/13

I was working in Glenarm today and had a strange notion to check out some wee men that I had put in place in an abandoned factory outside the town. Of the four original wee men, only one remained, looking as fresh and as well as the day I placed him there. His female companion had long since vanished.

13/06/13

The angriest robot in the world. Found this guy in a classroom I was working in this morning and he looked so fearsome I just had to take a shot of him.

14/06/13

I was doing some cleaning and tidying this evening when I found a handful of big elastic bands. One thing led to another. I took about six different shots with different arrangements of the bands. I think I need more bands and stronger bands -  I'm coming back to this one.

15/06/13

Thanks to the unrelenting rain, we were stuck indoors all day and decided to convert the kitchen into a mini studio. This was my favourite shot of Sarah, and it really needed minimal processing. Sarah then got her own camera and took some of me. They weren't half bad - she has a real talent but is way too bossy when directing her models.

16/06/13

Sarah again, riding through the new bike trails at the Mary Peters Track. Second time we've visited these and they're pretty fun. A nice way to spend a Sunday morning and get some exercise. Not bad way to spend father's day either come to think of it.

2013 365-23

Jesus, but summer seems to arrived in Belfast. Scorching hot weather all week and a trip to Donegal with the lads at the weekend? Yes please.

3/06/13

Taken and processed on my iphone 4. This scooter has been sitting in the street all week. Kinda spooky. Why? What happened to it's owner? Why has no-one stolen it (given that this is East Belfast)?

4/06/13

Bright sunshine isn't always the best weather for photos. Luckily I got my hands on a couple of sets of wee men from a tiny (and very weird) model shop near where I was working today. This is titled "Bob didn't know if it was the drink or the heat, but he knew he had to get Anges home."

5/06/13

"Jim's neighbours were a wee bit precious about their bins." I have on occasion taken the wrong bin, with far from hilarious results.

6/06/13

Travelling down the Ards peninsula this evening, armed with only my little Sony Nex-3 camera which I was getting re-acquainted with prior to heading off to Donegal. Had to stop and take this shot as the sun went down at Kircubbin pier and a few kids jumped into the water off the pier. The wee Sony coped well with the shot, although I did nearly cry when I realised that I didn't have my big camera with me. Thanks also to Maxie, another togger who'd stopped to take the same shot and ended up talking with me for so long, I was well late for dinner. It was great yakking about photography to someone whose eyes didn't glaze over when you mentioned white balance and ISO.

7/06/13

Colin, enjoying himself in Donegal. This was taken after he'd done his usual mugging for the camera and actually just relaxed. The sun was setting and the light was just as golden as I've ever seen.

8/06/13

Martin's mussels. I'm not sure I'd have taken this shot if I hadn't had a few pints and a wee whiskey, but I climbed up on a chair and zoomed my 18-55mm lens all the way out. This was the rather fetching  result.

9/06/13

When this is the sight that greets you when you walk out of the door, it doesn't half put a spring in your step and a bit of lead in your pencil. Taken before Alec went swimming and lost a tooth, but that's another story entirely. Donegal and the beach were not to blame.

2013 365-13

This week brought some strange and interesting offers and opportunities in terms of photography, sadly none of which I can talk about just now as I need to see how they will progress over the next few weeks. Plenty of shooting this week, and plenty of roller derby.

25/03/13

Promo shoot for Belfast Roller Derby yesterday afternoon, on the theme of Bloctopussy (Octopussy) where we were trying to recreate the origianl movie poster. It all worked out well, although it did take a fair bit of pre-planning and practice to get the four separate shots needed in order to merge them in photoshop. I wrote up a write up of how I did this - check it out here:

Bloctopussy Shoot

26/03/13

Was up and around early this morning and tried this panorama across Strangford Lough to Scrabo Tower. Not 100% happy with the shot of the processing of it, but its the best shot I took today.

 27/03/13

This is John McCullough, taken outside the Duke of York bar in Belfast. John is finally retiring and we met up for one last pint in the Duke. John was my first supervisor when I was a trainee psychologist (25 years ago) and he has had to live with the shame of this ever since. A genuinely nice guy and I hope he enjoys his retirement.

28/03/13

Fishing boat in Portavogie Harbour this morning. It's HDR processing, it's a wee bit over the top but it does bring out the sky really well. Might try this again, only without the big building on the right.

29/03/13

Flag protestor in tragic yet slightly ironic accident. I started playing about with a tube of toothpaste and various different sets of wee men. One thing lead to another and before long the red, white and blue toothpaste got me thinking about flags and this shot just appeared.

30/03/13

Robert suspected he was on a promise. Toothpaste wasn't the only thing I bought in the chemists. I had thought of doing something using a box of condoms and my wee nuns but this ended up being the best shot of the day.

31/03/13

Staying on the theme of wee men in the bathroom, I noticed how the oval shape of the sink would lend itself to some tiny skaters. My bathroom is pretty small and getting a camera on a tripod, two speedlights and a cardboard box of wee men wasn't easy and involved me falling in the bath at least once.

2013 365-8

Week eight begins with a big smile on my face. Hoping this smiling thing is long term rather than temporary since it feels pretty damn good. And no, I'm not telling you about it. Tough.

18/02/13

Found myself in the HMV closing down sale in Lisburn's Bow Street Mall this lunchtime. filled a bag of cd's and also found two mugs celebrating two of my favourite albums of all time -  this rather splendid one may just become my new office mug for my morning coffee. The other was the Stones' Exile on Main Street, which i have owned copies of since I first heard it. I've owned Exile on vinyl (twice), tape (once) and CD (four times).

19/02/13

I'd picked up a box of little skaters as while back but haven't really got round to doing anything with them. It was a nice bright afternoon today, so I went out into the back yard to see what I could get. I got this shot on the top of the blue recycling bin - Belfast for a bit of context? Now I need someone to paint my skaters in the colours of Belfast Roller Derby (and a couple of zerbras/refs as well).

20/02/13

Half term, so I got to collect the younger two girls early. This then involved a trip to the shops, and as an afterthought we took a wander into the local charity shop where we found this rather excellent Dalek helmet. Fully working, with batteries, one-size-fits-all and for the ridiculous price of £3.49. This is the result of three separate shots layered in Photoshop. I just love it. Another. dafter, shot later in the week.

21/02/03

I read an article on line about using multiple shots to produce large panoramas. This was trial shot number 2 with the ever willing Muffin. Almost 60 shots, with the camera set a 1/125 and f2.8. The first shot was set up on Muffin, then I locked down exposure and focus and took the rest in increasing circles around the start point. Autopano Giga was the software I used to stitch all the shots together, which it seems to do effortlessly and cleanly.

22/02/03

Another Dalek helmet shot. I have absolutely no idea why I decided that this would be a good idea.

23/02/13

My first foray back into concert photography came last night, courtesy of the Warzone Centre and Epic Tour in Belfast. I was asked to go along and cover this (as opposed to my usual blagging and bluffing) and it would be fair to say I was nervous about this. The Warzone is dark - as dark as a dark thing wrapped in a blanket, placed in a light-safe box and buried underground. I had to use flash, but since it was a very small venue I was able to get away with very low power (about 1/32 power) and this also allowed me to use lower shutter speeds to capture the action. This is Kevin, lead singer with French band The Decline! and they were supported by three local punk bands. I enjoyed this; the shots came out well, I got to meet loads of new people and make new contacts and I got to practice a bit of french. The shot above just leapt out at me on the first pass through the shots and seemed to really cry out out for black and white.

24/02/13

The crowd last night was small but energetic. My personal favourite Belfast punk is Barzo (above) who was more than a little tired and emotional last night, courtesy of good old Buckfast. Lovely guy who would never walk past without saying hello and having a chat. The back of his head appears in more than one photo, due to excessive jumping around. I had to take some shots of the crowd and ended up with a dozen of Barzo. This is my own favourite.

2013 365-6

Week six it is then.

04/02/13

A pack of little skaters and skateboarders arrived today in the post. This was quick try at getting something with one of them, using a bit of black string and a fruit bowl. With the aperture set at 3.5  the background came out black and covered up the string from which the wee man was suspended. Lost detail in the oranges though.

05/02/13

Still cracking on with single light flash portraits. This is my daughter Ellen taken using an SB-700 flash unit fitted with a small softbox and was fired on high speed sync (auto FP on Nikon) with a shutter speed of 1/2000. Nice shot of Ellen - even she liked it and she's a hard audience to please. She was delighted that a lot of her friends saw it on Facebook and complimented her on it. Result all round.

06/02/13

I returned to Belmont Park this evening to try out one very long exposure shot of the wooden statues there. I was aiming for 20-30 minutes in order to get some star trails, but sadly there was too much cloud cover to pick these out . I did capture one star trail in the top right-hand corner but it really just looks out of place. The statues themselves came out pretty well on a 30 minute exposure although I noted some "hot pixels" when zoomed in. Probably why it's recommended to take a large number of shorter shots (i.e. 200-250 30" exposures) and combine them in the appropriate software in post production. We live and learn.

07/02/13

A long time ago, I ordered some business cards in an attempt to promote my photography. People always ask me if I have a card, website, etc. The cards were, frankly, rubbish and I never actually handed any of them out because I was a little embarrassed by them. This week I finally bit the bullet and sat down to do it properly and that meant researching print firms and thinking about the design of the cards. Moo Print seemed to come out on tops in terms of quality and service, so I went for them. I used one of their existing designs, modified it to suit me and uploaded five high quality jpegs. The cards arrived today (five day turnaround) beautifully packaged and presented. They look (and feel) really high quality, complete with a funky case than fans out to display your cards in all their glory. I love these and definitely won't be embarrassed to hand them out.

08/02/13

Half price Haribo sweets? I'll be having some of these. The fantasy mix seemed to be the most promising in photographic terms - big and colourful. This is my packet of sweets set on a sheet of perspex, suspended between two chairs in the kitchen with a flashgun placed directly underneath.  Colourful enough, almost in a stained-glass window way.

09/02/13

More single flash portrait practice this week. This time using a honeycomb grid to modify the flash and make the light more directional. No backdrop used here - the highly directional light wiped the background out (my cluttered living room) and there was very little post-processing needed with any of these shots.

10/02/13

Fresh meat session (i.e. newbies) with Belfast Roller Derby this afternoon. Always fun to see new people on skates and there was a big crowd turned up today. I was shuttling between the fresh meat session and the intermediates/advanced training. I think I'm now about 95% sorted in terms of using lights with roller derby. This rear view belongs to the fantastic Rosa "Sigourney Cleaver" Hughes.

How Not to Photograph Street Protests

A couple of pointers for anyone thinking of photographing the current street protests in Belfast, although the best advice (given the way protestors have been treating photographers) is simply "don't."

Not Advisable

Potentially Suicidal

Better, But Still Risky