Back when I was in high school I had this photo course that I went to two times a week. At the end of the year we got an exam to test our skills and to give us a final grade.
Everyone got a random miniature dinosaur from the teacher that we were supposed to take pictures of. I got this very vibrant blue triceratops. The exam task was simple and open and we were supposed to make a small collection of interesting photos, using our miniature dinosaurs as the main object of the photos.
So there were a lot of different possibilities. I tried out some different things, but concluded that I wanted to focus on taking some realistic photos. I wanted to put the toy dinosaur in a realistic setting and make it look like the toy is in real scale and more natural.
I took my car and started driving out of my suburban area. Since I lived in Norway at this time, I didn't have to drive far before I found some nice location to take my pictures.
This first picture is one of my favorites from this task. This photo was taken in a ditch on the side of the road after driving for about 45 minutes. I saw this ditch with some sand and shallow puddles on the side of the road while driving and just stopped right there to have a look. When I went to take a closer look I found this beautiful small puddles with some grass growing into the puddle. When I put my toy there and found the right angle this puddle and the grass made it look like a lake with cattails growing on the edge of it. The simple composition and the two colors green and blue work very well together here.
After taking a couple of pictures here I started the car and continued my journey. After about 5 minutes I discovered this crossroad that I hadn't seen before. I went to the left and ended up with this small beautiful river after a little while. I went to down to the riverbank and took some pictures with the dinosaur in the water or on the stones at the edge of the river. They didn't turn out the way I wanted, so I turned around and put the toy in front of these roots that were growing down from the riverbank and onto this big stone that was going into the river. I went into the river to be able to have a good composition and enough distance from the dinosaur. This photo also has a nice mix of green and blue with a lot of grey textures adding to the picture. The roots and moss in the background make the picture look a little surreal and almost looks a bit like a jungle which is very fitting for a dinosaur.
After this picture I decided to drive to my cabin where I had some ideas of some more locations. Right before arriving at my cabin I had to stop again for something at the edge of the road. This time I noticed this small turf of some really interesting read and orange plants. Their scale was pretty small and was perfect for my dinosaur. I put my dinosaur in some different positions an took some shots. This first picture looks natural and it seems like the dinosaur is in it's natural habitat. Even though the colors are very vibrant and unnatural, I think it fits with the dinosaur from an ancient time. The plants look like a vibrant jungle with a lot of variety.
In this picture I put the dinosaur head to head with this soldier toy that I decided to buy before the trip. I went to this toyshop and bought some extra miniatures just in case it wood fit in the composition. I felt like this was the place to put the soldier toy together with the dinosaur on some of the pictures to create some more variation and an interesting relationship between the two. In this picture you have the two toys looking straight at each other and I went for a very flat 2D type of picture. Where the focus is on the two toys looking at each other, ready to attack.
This next picture is a close up portrait type picture of the dinosaur to focus some more on the finer details of the model and get in closer.
The last place I went to on this road trip was my cabin. I took a walk to a nice small river that I know about. I put the dinosaur at the riverbank and then put the small soldier toy a bit closer to the camera. This blurred the dinosaur out of focus and created an interesting composition. Here you are getting into the perspective of the soldier that just realized that a gigantic dinosaur is in front of him. The fact that the dinosaur is out of focus in the background creates a simple and unspecific silhouette. Adding some danger and uncertainty to the picture. I also decided to keep the picture black and white to put more focus on the relationship between the dinosaur and the man, and to keep it simple.
The other picture from this location is again a close up portrait. I also decided to keep this picture black and white. The colors are far less interesting then the textures seen in the picture. So I took the color away and put the focus on those textures.
This is the last picture of this exam task. This picture was taken after I got home from my road trip. I wanted one more picture, maybe with some different visuals then my other pictures. I tried to do something more artistic with this last picture and decided to put the dinosaur on my black Yamaha piano. This created this interesting reflection and just by looking at the picture it's not clear whats really happening or where this is. I made this picture black and white to again keep it simple and focus more on the weird and unnatural composition and look of the picture.
This exam task was a very fun and interesting challenge which gave me a lot of unplanned and pleasant experiences. The challenge of getting in closer and trying to make a realistic setting for a small toy gives you a lot of challenges. It might open your eyes to all the possibilities all around you as long as you are creative and open to see the possibilities in the smaller details. I absolutely recommend this type of task to everyone that is interested in photography. It will teach you a lot and give you a lot of fun experiences.
What do you think about my task? Do you have any comments or critique to my work?
Be sure to comment below!
