Shooting In Small Scale

Ever since I saw the movie Marwencol at the Sidewalk Film Festival last year I have been wanting to take pics of toys posed in life like scenarios. It's cool to kinda recreate a scene in my head or even my memory. Also this helps me learn the features of my camera in a controlled environment so that if I'm out and see a scene I want, I know how to set up the shot quickly. I decided to get out my Huey toys today and give it a go. The big one is a 21st Century Toys UH-1C gunship and is pretty big at 1/18 scale. I found a place in the yard where there was a nice patch of moss. The moss is a perfect scale model of grass for this scene. The regular grass looks like bushes in this scale. Check out the pics and let me know how I did.

Pre-flighting the aircraft.

Make sure the Jesus nut is tight so the rotors don't fly off.

Climbing down from the roof.

Ready to crank, gotta get Kyle to the racetrack ;-)  (yeah, that's an OLD Kyle Petty figure sitting in the back.)

Pilot: CLEAR!

Crewchief: CLEAR AND UNTIED!

Pilot: COMING HOT!

Engine: whiiiirrrrrrrrr

My other Huey model. This one is 1/48 scale and is actually a UH-1H like the ones I crewed when I was in the army.

A closer view. I usually sat in the rear gun well where this figure is sitting when we had the guns mounted. Otherwise I usually sat on the seat ahead of him facing forward. Part of my job was to take care of anyone in the rear of the aircraft and to also help the pilots watch the gauges as well as to make sure we were not going to hit or be hit by anything outside the aircraft. Basically I was pretty busy whether we were flying or loading/unloading the aircraft. I must have done alright, we never crashed ;-)

Some Pictures From The Lane Motor Museum In Nashville, TN

The Lane Motor Museum in Nashville is a great place to visit. It is full of all kinds of cars you have never heard of and a few you will like a whole lot. They collect European cars and have a great collection of these. I took the family with me over the Independence Day weekend and everyone seemed to have fun. If you are ever in Nashville give them a look. In the meantime here are a few of the pics I took while I was there.

Some kind of cool small car that I have no idea of the maker.

This was made by Vespa in 1956. Yep, the same company that made the scooters.

And here is another view with a scooter next to it so you can get an idea of how small it really is.

I loved this old 50's VW, especially with that wild manual AC unit hanging on the passenger window.

A nice angle shot of some really old BMW's. They were a whole lot different than the current line up from this company ;-)

I have a lot more from this place. I'll post more later on.

4th Of July In Franklin, Tn

Spent the Independence Day weekend in Nashville, TN and on Monday Allison and I took off for Franklin, TN. It's one of our favorite places to visit and we knew that the celebrations would be pure small town America. We were right and it was great. I'll post some normal pictures later, but for now check out these pictures that I've played with and some that just speak to me.

The last time we were in Franklin the theater was pretty run down looking. Since then they've done a nice restoration and have it looking pretty damn nice. Straight out of the old days as a matter of fact. One of the great things about small towns and holidays is that they shut down Main street and do stuff like having Vintage cars park up and down the street. Because of this I got a good shot of the theater that looks straight out of the history books. This one I converted to B&W. I really like it with that old time feel.

This one a played with in Photoshop and kinda got an artsy old postcard kind of look. I dig this one too.

Great shot of what a small town Main Street looks like on the 4th of July.

Vintage signs like this are one of my favorite things to hunt down and take pictures of. This one has obviously been restored and it looks great.

The statue in the Courthouse square. What kind of small Southern town doesn't have a Confederate soldier monument. This one even has cannons around it, but with all the party stuff going on I didn't get any good pictures of them. I LOVE small towns and Franklin is one of the best. They have embraced commerce and modern America a few miles away beside the Interstate, but here in the old historic downtown it is kept as cool and historic as is reasonable. They've done a great job!

Spent Independence Day Weekend in Nashville.

Allison, Caitlin, Blake and I all went to Nashville this weekend to see Ryan and Lee Anna. We had a great time and got to do a bunch of fun stuff. Saturday morning we were going to go to the Loveless Cafe for breakfast but they had a 2 1/2 hr. wait. NO food is worth a wait that long so we took off and thanks to smartphones and google we found Morell's. They have a couple of locations, but I think we ate at the oldest. This place is really unique because it is communal dining. That means that unless your group is pretty large you are going to share a table with people you don't know. In our case it was a local family. They were pretty quiet but their 15 yr. old son TC was great to talk with. A very intelligent young man who I hope will go on to do great things one day. His Mother has done a great job raising him. After lunch we went to the Lane Motor Museum, but that's another post.....

Morell's. A great restaurant in the middle of Germantown near downtown Nashville.

Our new little friend Olive. Her Grandmother was sitting with her outside so her Mom could finish eating. She was a cute little girl and gave us plenty to talk about. This picture took a little work to get. I had to hold the camera ready and focused for a long time until she looked up just right and I managed to capture that look.

This was in the front yard of one of the neighbor's house. Basically Monell's sits in the middle of a bunch of old houses in a very nice little part of town. Olive's Grandmother told us that there used to be a local ice company called Polar Bear Ice and this was their logo. It seems someone grabbed up one of the statues when they closed up. His arm is broken, but you can still tell he's throwing snowballs. It's still a cool statue ESPECIALLY on a hot July morning.

One of the neighboring houses. I had to edit out a power pole and some power lines. This area is old enough that the wires are just kind of thrown up anywhere.

At the end of the block was this nice old building. It has a restaurant too, but it was closed. I think it's more of a dinner place. I like this style of building though.

Stay tuned there is more to come from Nashville.

The Tasty Dip, Somewhere on Hwy 78 Near The Georgia/Alabama Line

A little ways down the road from the cool Memorial Park we came across the Tasty Dip and decided we needed some ice cream. It was a neat little place and the cool treat hit the spot. I love old places like this that are still being used the way they were intended. It's good to see our old way of life being preserved. My family used to stop at places like this when we are on road trips all the time. I really miss those old days with the Mom & Pop joints serving great food instead of the "one just like the others" corporate eating establishments. When you see a place like this stop in and show a little support. They won't be around forever, enjoy them while you can.

This sign has probably been on the roof of this building for over 40 years. It still works and still looks great.

I played with the exposure a little and came up with this one. I kinda dig it, looks like the sun has gone down and we're just waiting for the Johnny and his 57 Chevy to show up and start "cruising".

Allison was waiting for our ice cream. Other than the plastic garbage cans, this pic could have been taken decades ago.

from the other side. it still looks good.

Classic sign painting is becoming a lost art. I wish I had the talent, I would love to be able to paint stuff like this.


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Memorial Park On Hwy 78 Near Tallapoosa, GA.

Allison and I went to Atlanta for the Rockabilly Luau recently and on the ride home decided we would take Hwy 78 instead of the Interstate for most of the way. This is always a good idea when you have time because you run across really neat stuff that gets missed when you're "trying to make time". One of those neat places is Helton Howland Park near Tallapoosa, Georgia. I was driving along and saw the tank first and thought "that's cool" THEN I saw the Mighty UH-1H Huey on the pedestal. THAT got me to almost run off the road getting stopped. We turned around and went back to check things out a bit. It was pretty damn hot by this time of day so we didn't wander too much, but I did take a LOT of pictures of the Huey. Some of you know that I was a Huey Crewchief for almost 10 years in the Army and still have a big soft spot for them. Over 1000 hours of flying in an aircraft will do that to you ;-) There were a few other military vehicles in the park as well, but I didn't like the pics I took so only the M-60 Tank made the cut.

"Standing Guard"
I took this pic from up the hill where the Huey was located. It was just too hot to walk all over the place. I used the zoom to get the picture and then used Photoshop to take out some posts and other junk in the foreground. The way the tank is located on a hill in front of the flags impressed me. Just like our current Military members, standing guard, watching over us and protecting us from evil.

"Glorious Huey"
The way they have their Huey displayed is VERY nice. Most displays like this just have a post with a rack that the aircraft's skid tubes sit on. Their display actually mounts into the hellhole on the bottom of the airframe and I'm sure it attaches to the cross-member that holds the cargo hook when installed. They had American flags all around the park and I liked how they framed this view of the aircraft.

"Fly By"
From here it looks like the Huey is flying at you. They have the rotors turned instead of lined up with the airframe and it REALLY makes it look great. If it wasn't such a pain to get rid of the post with all those trees and plants around it I would make this one really look like it's flying. Oh yeah, they also have mannequins in the aircraft in flight gear to add to the look.

"Take Off"
This view really does look like the Huey just lifted off from a Firebase to go drop some C-Rations somewhere else. When I crewed I usually sat on this side and flew with the doors open. When we had the guns mounted I sat on the rear seats in the gun well, but most times I sat on the bench seat mounted across the interior.

"Lift Off"
In this one I did get rid of the post and also added some motion blur to the blades to make them look more like they are moving. I'll probably play with it some more later and blur them a little more.

Just included this one so you can see the mannequins on board. They need a little work, it looks like they are slipping from the angle they sit at and the helmets don't fit quite right. Maybe I'll go back and volunteer to take care of that for them ;-)

Bald River Falls, Near the Cherahola Skyway, TN

During the Big Mtn Run last weekend we went for a ride to check out these falls. I got some pretty cool pics and I'll post them over the next few days. I love being in the mountains, and I especially love being near mtn. streams. My Mom started a tradition with us when I was a kid. Any time we went to the Smokies we had to go to a stream and at least put our feet in. I still enjoy this tradition today.

Taken from the bridge above.

From the road right before the bridge.

Taken from below the bridge. This is a beautiful location and I truly enjoyed my time there. I'll post more pics soon.