Uploaded to Flickr!

It's actually been about a month since I've been on Flickr.  I had several pictures (from camp and from around my yard) to upload but just didn't get around to it.  I finally wandered back to Flickr yesterday, uploading "Japanese Doll" (pictured).  At that time I got caught up with most of my friends, too.  Then today I finished getting caught up with friends and uploaded another 17 pictures.  I'm glad I finally got all these pics off of my camera - and now it's definitely time to take more!!!

Phone Cases!

As I mentioned on August 3rd, some of my pictures on Redbubble look awesome as phone cases.  So to show that off, I created a new collection featuring all of those pictures!

The collection is a fun mish-mash of my photos.  There are Lego pictures (which make some very fun cases!), flower pictures (which make for some very pretty cases), animal pictures, and even some landscapes (like this fun picture of Duluth, Minnesota's Aerial Lift Bridge).  But not everything I have available on Redbubble is available as a case - some pictures just didn't look good, so they didn't make the cut.  And one picture, "The Crystal King's Closeup," looks fine as an iPhone case, but terrible as a Samsung case (so it's only available for iPhones). 

After making the new collection, I ended up removing my old Animals collection, combining it with the Miscellaneous one.  I like that there are only five collections on my profile page so it doesn't look too busy.  The new collection is now at the top of the page, giving it center stage to the other collections. 

Explored!

So it finally happened - I made it into Flickr's Explore pages!  And even more exciting, it's happened three times so far!


The first one was "3 Blooms - March 15 2014 2," a picture I took of my mom's orchid blooming.  This one made it to #79 on the March 15th Explore page.  It has over 9000 views, beating out "Blurry Sasha" (my reigning champion since 2010) by about 1000 views.


The second one was "Tink, Day 4."  That one climbed to #110on May 22nd, 2014.  It's currently got just over 6000 views, about 2000 less than "Blurry Sasha."


Finally was "New Camera!"  I really don't know why everyone was excited about this one, but it climbed to #6 on July 29th, 2014.  It's actually got over 20,000 views right now, beating out "Blurry Sasha" by about 11,000 views!

Redbubble Updated with Cool New Things!

So it's been awhile since I updated my Redbubble site.  In fact, the last time I updated it was when I last posted here.  But I was clearing out some of my emails, when I came across a Redbubble newsletter that had this article.  Realizing I haven't actually gone to Redbubble in months, I decided to look at my profile and see if I could use some of their tips to improve it.

I started out by hiding a bunch of pictures.  Most of them were Lego ones that haven't gotten many views.  I did end up keeping a few on there that had less than my arbitrary view count to stay, just because I liked them.  When that was done, I hid a bunch of other pictures, too; ones that I decided for one reason or another don't need to be there.

It was around this point that I rewrote my bio and decided to upload a few flower pictures I took with my new camera (oh yeah, I got a new camera!)  I chose a couple of flower pictures with ants in them based off of my newly rewritten bio.  And that was when I first noticed that my pictures were able to go onto the new Redbubble throw pillows and iPhone cases.  I didn't think some of my older pictures (ie the ones taken with my Canon PowerShot S3 IS) were capable of being on the new throw pillows and stuff.  But I figured out how to actually get them there.  Around that time, I also decided to drop my prices.  I've been putting a 50% markup on all my pictures since I started on Redbubble.  As per their tips, they suggested that I rethink the price; I decided to go with their suggested 20%, just to see how that goes.

So for the next hour or two, I was changing all my prices, and reuploading pictures so they could be on throw pillows and stuff.   I played around with everything, trying to make all the pictures look good on whatever I'm offering them on now.  If they didn't look good, I didn't enable whatever it was as a buying option (so, for example, if something didn't look good as an iPad case, it is not offered as an iPad case). 

So now I have a smaller selection of pictures available to buy as a greater number of things.  And everything looks gorgeous!  (Doing this really made me want an iPhone - some of my pics look absolutely fantastic as phone cases!) 

Final GDC Online

So I'm back from my trip to Austin for the final GDC Online.  I took some pictures, which are all on my Flickr page here.  Apparently I am terrible at taking people pictures; almost everything in that set is either a Lego minifig or a hotel room. 

The trip itself was a lot of fun.  I was unfortunately sick for all of it, but I made the best of things and still had an excellent time. I met many great people, and reconnected with others whom I've met before.  All in all it was a fantastic trip and I will miss Austin (although I am excited for San Francisco...)

Finally Uploaded 3 Weeks Worth of Pictures to Flickr

So yeah, I had about three weeks worth of pictures on my camera and I finally uploaded everything to Flickr.  I had pictures from a fishing expedition with my dad on my local river; unfortunately all we caught was one pike and it flipped off the hook before I could get a picture.  I went with a friend up Mt McKay during a storm, and uploaded a picture from that night.  It's a bit blurry, but I thought the picture looked pretty neat.  I've also taken lots of pictures of the flowers in my yard, so those are there too.

The one thing that's missing is Lego pictures.  As I was uploading everything, I realized I hadn't taken any at all during these last few weeks!  Hopefully I'll have some time to remedy that this week!

A Whole Bunch of Pictures and an Update on the Flood

Edward Street Bridge Last Night, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

If you've been on my Flickr photostream lately, you may have noticed I haven't uploaded anything new since May 29th. While I haven't uploaded anything new I have taken quite a few pictures during that time. So as I write this I have over fifty pictures uploading to Flickr. There are a lot of flower pictures because I bought flowers and our lupins bloomed. But there are also a bunch of waterfalls. In the wake of the floods I wanted to see what all of the local waterfalls looked like. I went back to Kakabeka one night, then went out to High Falls and Middle Falls a few days after that.

As to the flooding, if you aren't aware of what happened, my city received record breaking rainfall in late May. Our sewage plant was flooded and many people ended up with both water and sewage in their basements. This was mainly restricted to two areas in the city.

It's taken a few weeks but as far as I know the pumps are back online (or should be within a day or so). We've had temporary pumps functional for the last week or so, but they were playing catch up and pumping out the sewage pump. Luckily we haven't had much more rain in the last few weeks!

And if anyone is wondering, my house was completely fine. I actually drove home through the storm which was a bit scary, but my basement was completely fine. I was more worried about the roof because it had been leaking a few days before the bad storm, but it's also been fine.

Red Bubble All Cleaned Up

I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks and forgot to delete all of those pictures I mentioned in my last post. But today I stopped putting it off and actually cleaned up my Red Bubble site. In addition to deleting almost everything on the list from my last post, I decided to get rid of the Lego pictures "Rapping My Heart Out," "Squidtron," and the black and white "Lake Lenore in Black and White." The only picture on my list that didn't get deleted was "Orange Gerber Daisy Close Up;" I decided that one should stay. In total, I deleted 54 images from my Red Bubble site.

After deleting everything, I reorganized my collections as well. I decided to get rid of the Black and White collection because all of the black and white pictures I have on Red Bubble are scenics. I also decided to keep the Miscellaneous collection as that will give me a good place to showcase any pictures that don't quite fit into the other collections.

As I mentioned in my last post, all of these photos still appear on my Flickr photostream.

Cleaning Up my Red Bubble

I've been thinking about cleaning up my Red Bubble site for a while now. And now that it's spring, there's no time like the present! I like all of the pictures that I have featured on Red Bubble, but I have an awful lot of them, especially Lego pics. I remember reading that it's a good idea to cycle out your old pictures on Red Bubble to keep your portfolio fresh. So that's what I'm going to do this month, cycling out some of my least popular pieces to make room for future new ones. Rather than just deleting them all, I am going to lower my markup on them until the end of the month so they are all on sale! Red Bubble has their prices set for manufacturing the prints, so I cannot lower that cost. But I set the markup on all of my pictures. So for the next ten days, I am putting these pictures on sale, after which they will be deleted from Red Bubble (but don't worry, they'll still be visible on Flickr) Lego:

• The Last Thing You See (a Lego Boba Fett shot)
• Noob Combo! (Lego Halo)
• The Royal Knight's King (Lego Castle)
• Cyborg Villain - A Closeup (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• All in Green - Toy Story Army Men (Lego Toy Story)
• I Guess He Does Have an Army Truck (Lego Toy Story/Boba Fett)
• Miss Swann (Lego Pirates of the Caribbean)
• The Foreman (Lego Construction worker)
• The Blacksmith (Lego Castle)
• Anubis (Lego Pharaoh's Quest)
• Hey, Wanna Race? (Collectible Minifigs - Series 2 and 3)
• Elf in the Snow (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• The Troll Queen (Lego Castle)
• Grab that Scorpion! (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• The Dragon Masters in the Snow (Lego Castle)
• Tokkat (Lego Star Wars - an Ewok)
• Underwater Atlantis Adventurer! (Lego Atlantis)
• Dengar (Lego Star Wars)

Flowers:

• A Pretty Purple Flower
• Purple "Wild" Iris
• Pretty in Orange
• Oh So Pink!
• Pretty Purple Blooms
• A Random Day in Fall - Gerber Daisy
• Pretty in Yellow
• A Final Black Eyed Susan
• Orange Gerber Daisy Closeup
• Gerber Daisy - Water and Shadows
• From Seed to Flower

Animals:

• Two Bucks - Mission Island
• Another Buck - Mission Island
• Dragonfly in the Leaves
• Blurry Sasha

Black and Whites/Scenics

• Black and White Frozen High Falls - Pigeon River
• Dad by a Side Road
• Silhoutte Sunset at Lake Lenore
• View of Lake Superior - Tettegouche, MN
• Fall Colours
• Middle Falls
• Above Middle Falls
• A Single Cloud
• Contrails in the Afterglow Over Fork Lake
• The Walking Bridge- Temperance River
• Dramatic Sky While Out Fishing

Miscellaneous (temporarily created for these pictures):

• Warhammer Elder Guardians
• Jelly Fish Food Colouring Abstract
• Blue and Yellow Food Colouring Abstract
• Green Dragon Food Colouring Abstract
• Food Colouring Abstracts!
• Snowy Neighbourhood at Night
• Snowflakes by Our Evergreen

Death Star Throne Room

Death Star Throne Room, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

I found this picture quite awhile ago and absolutely loved it. I also love the Emperor minifig, so I've been toying with attempting to recreate it with Lego for quite some time now. I acquired the pieces to build the Emperor's chair from Final Duel 1. Once all the pieces were here, I realized I only really needed the window for this but that's okay (now the Emperor has his chair).
I finally sat down yesterday and made the backdrop. I think it turned out reasonably well. I decided to use blue legos to kind of mimic the lighting behind the stairs. I originally wanted to use gray but I didn't have nearly enough bricks so blue it was. To get the stars in the window, I used a friend's suggestion: I took a black piece of construction paper and poked a bunch of holes into it. I then placed my flashlight behind the paper to light the holes up.
Lighting the actual picture was pretty tricky, especially now that I was using my normal flashlight for the stars. I tried a second flashlight, but the light it threw wasn't right. I then switched to a book light which I covered with a kleenex. The result was this subdued lighting, which I thought was perfect.
Of course, now that the set up was finished, I then had to experiment with where to cast the light. I ended up taking over 40 pictures before being able to decide on a couple I really liked. I ended up posting this one because everything just seemed to work: the window was clear, the lighting was good, and you can see the backdrop reasonably well. I really liked three of the others as well but none of them worked the way this version did.
If you know who the artist is for the original picture, please let me know so I can give proper credit!

Barriss Offee

Barriss Offee, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

I originally got a Barriss Offee minifig for another project. I had never heard of her before and so had no qualms about taking the minifigure apart. But then somewhere along the way, I discovered this picture, which really intrigued me. A jedi using the force to heal? This is the type of thing I imagined Master Yoda doing (before his lightsaber duel sort of ruined that image of him for me). I liked the idea of a jedi who doesn't fight (and doesn't have a lightsaber), but instead can heal and do other mysterious things with the Force. I realize that in Star Wars, the real Barriss Offee does have a lightsaber, but I've refused to get one for my minifig.

This shot was a long time in the making. After I saw the aforementioned picture, I thought that Yoda's Hut would be the perfect backdrop! I acquired Yoda's Hut a long time ago from ebay, but haven't had a chance to use it before now (again, it was purchased for another project, different from the one I wanted Barriss Offee for. I just haven't had time to shoot it yet). I also wanted a large chunk of time to shoot this picture, knowing I would need time to get everything posed right (and I'd probably need to take multiple shots). I was planning on shooting something else tonight (one of my minifigure portraits for my Faces of Lego set) when I found the picture sitting with my Lego collection. Having the needed time, I decided that now was the perfect time to attempt this.

I originally had a larger trans blue piece for Barriss to hold (as the force magic), but it was too large and looked funny. Luckily the end of Mr. Freeze's gun worked perfectly!
I took over 30 shots with my Canon. I had it narrowed down to four before ultimately choosing this one. I originally had a shot uploaded where I had the trans blue piece really sparkling (thanks to multiple flashlights!), which looked really neat. But I ended up going with this one because I liked the lighting way better on the rest of the shot.
If you know who the artist of the original picture is, please let me know so I can give proper credit!

Another Big Thank You!

...to whomever just purchased a greeting card of "Yoda on the Dock"! Your support is very much appreciated! I hope you enjoy! :D

And Look at the Two of Us

And Look at the Two of Us, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

I was listening to the Pet Shop Boys song "Rent," which gave me inspiration for this shot. I don't know if I really pulled off what I was trying to, but I gave it my best shot. I also should add, I've never seen the video before tonight (when I found it to post here), so it didn't influence this shot at all. Only the song itself did.

A while ago, my brother and I were discussing the Pet Shop Boys and "Rent" came up. I told him I thought it was a really pretty song. He agreed, but added that it's also really sad. Since then I've been listening to it on and off, paying special attention to the lyrics and I have to agree with him; it is sad.

The main inspiration for this is the first chorus and verse:
"And look at the two of us in sympathy
With everything we see
I never want anything, it's easy
You buy whatever I need
But look at my hopes, look at my dreams
The currency we've spent
(Ooooh) I love you, oh, you pay my rent
(Ooooh) I love you, oh, you pay my rent."

I built the Paradisa set Poolside Paradise for this. I thought it would get across the idea that this couple has whatever they want/need (especially with the butler present). Unfortunately I wasn't able to stage this so you can see the pool in the front yard which would've given that idea a bit better, but this worked. Then I wanted the girl to look unsatisfied, despite all the wealth around her. Meanwhile the guy is totally happy - that's why he's closer to the table and looking at her, not at the camera. I posted this version because you can see the background (and the palm tree, which is kind of behind the butler). I had another version that had the minifigs lit but the background was way too dark. So I went with this one because it better captured what I was trying to do (even though I like the other one more!)

When I was finished, I felt sorry for the rapper guy, so I took a portrait of him on my black background.

I hope I was able to convey everything I wanted to in "And Look at the Two of Us." Let me know what you think so I can improve the next time I try something like this again!