JJP Designs | Photo Ninja

Ah, yes... the Roarin' 20s! No more war - soldiers comin' home... Automobiles... Electricity... Everything was getting better, bigger, and easier to get your hands on... The economy grew by 42%... Forty Two Percent!!! Jazz was in the air... Flappers were swingin'... Booze was flowin'... Shhh... Don't tell anyone about that last one... Prohibition, ya' know. And raging debates were taking place among paleontologists... Um... wait... what!?! Paleontologists? Hey, buddy... is someone zozzled on foot juice? Yep, paleontology. Apparently the Tyrant Lizard King (Tyrannosaurus Rex) was having a bit of an up hill battle in claiming the thrown. You see, there was some debate as to its classification... and you know how those paleontologists get when they can't agree on classification. Um, yeah - they snuff at one another and storm off to measure some things and jot notes detailing millimeters and geology terms. Okay, so these paleontologists (Matthew, Brown, ...

So, this is my core crew... relaxing at home waiting for quarantine to lift... One the left, in the back, we have the the enforcer, the K3, wearing top hat and tails - the 150-450... top hat removed and set aside (left/front)... Then old yeller, the K7, sporting the ranger - the 55-300... Next the overseer - the Rokinon 14mm... Then the grifter, the KP, sporting a lovely little eye-spy - the 50mm 1.4 - though she is eye-spying her favorite little black dress to her left (your right) - the 100mm 2.8 Macro... Next we have Frank and Dino, the K1Mii duo... one wearing his shirt with the top buttons undone, 28-70, with a little bling on top, Godox R2ProII trigger, while the other is running top down and ready for anything... That's my crew - well, most of them... As for the rest, well... I would introduce you but then they'd have ta'... ya' know.

I have been wanting to take some particular shots with my swords and I finally got the chance thanks to a little help from a friend who loaned me the gauntlets from their suit of armor. I knew that reflections and light flare in the swords and gauntlets were something I needed to avoid so there was a bit of contemplation on how to position them and how to light them. This was a situation where I did meter the light rather than setting exposure purely by eye. In the trial and error of finding how best to arrange and support the swords and gauntlets my wife came to the rescue with the solution - the stand from a vase we keep full of potpourri in our front room. She had the idea of putting it in from behind and under our backdrop. The equipment I used (shown below) was two Godox AD200 units with bare bulb heads - one with barn doors and a red gel and the other with a small 9x36 strip softbox. I shot with a Sigma 28-70 2.8 on my Pentax K1Mii - hand held - ISO 100, 1/200th, som...