View allAll Photos Tagged LifeInPlastic
DANDYIRON MAN....
Okay, Tony Stark got the idea for the red component of the Iron Man armour's colour scheme from his second favourite hot rod.
And the yellow?
Wellllllll.........
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This is the 23 centimetre tall (8 inch) Toy Biz "Famous Cover Series" Invincible Iron Man figure with its distinctive fabric and plastic costume. Not a bad bit of kit, I particularly like the head sculpt. The figure is patterned after the Bob Layton cover illustration of "The Invincible Iron Man", issue #126.
The weeds are the invasively tenacious Arctotheca calendula. Capeweed (also called Cape Dandelion or Cape Marigold) is a native of South Africa and en masse the flowers are actually quite decorative until they escape from their garden beds and EAT your lawn...
Picard and Worf get ready to board Shuttle 'Goddard' to head back to the Enterprise. Adverse weather conditions had made transporters inoperable.
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Madonna - Material Girl : www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0FXPqYpt0g
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(BEST SEEN HEROICALLY LARGE !!)
"HAIR OF THE GOD, MORTAL?"
"OWWWARGGGH !! GOTTA THUNDERING GREAT HEADACHE !! WHAT IN THE NAME OF SIR ISAMBARD BLOODY KINGDOM BRUNEL DID I DRINK LAST NIGHT?"
Poor old Tony Stark, he's been through the Ringer. The Civil War. The Aftermath. Captain America's assassination. Assembling the new Avengers and the national registered superhero teams. Mortally wounded in the Hypervelocity attacks. Subverted by Ultron. Now he's Director of SHIELD, not to mention the Illuminati crisis and the looming return of a considerably peeved Hulk to Earth.
To top it all they've cast Robert Downey Junior to play him in the Iron Man movie....
Something had to give.
He fell off the wagon.
And when Iron Man falls he falls far and hits hard.
And what he hits hardest is...himself.
Tony Stark's teammates in the Avengers knew all about his alcoholism and decided that the God of Thunder, Mighty Thor, should take a whack at applying aversion therapy.
Good old Thor. You can always rely upon him to hammer out a solution.
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Well, Irony Man is back! What can I say, but deny any and all rumours that Mr Stark has been away in rehab.
The benchtop set didn't need to be too complex for this shot. The backdrop is the reverse side of my drawing board. The widgets in front of it are the baseplates for Asylum Klingon action figures. The cartoon Iron Man and Thor are from the Marvel Super Hero Squad range, and were packaged together. Bemusingly, I've had this idea stuck in the back of my head for a while, the coincidental team-up just made it easier to knock it loose!
I didn't want to make this another Noirish shot, mainly because a hangover in the full blaze of morning light is even worse! I couldn't resist bumping up the lighting levels with some appropriate thunderbolts. I used lens flares and specialised brushes including some custom Photoshop Lighning Bolt brushes found here:
Oh, and who else should Tony Stark, supergenius, swear by but the great engineer Sir Isambard?
"Both Worf and Kor had skills with blades that proved useful when it came to building the proof of concept model of the spacecraft"
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I really couldn't have built the full size Klingon fighter craft without first developing a model in corflute plastic.
Translating the sketch into 3D allowed me to test a number of aspects such as hull plate size and shapes, as well as enabling me to discard or modify elements that wouldn't scale up well. The model is made from black corflute, held together with Hot Melt glue and isn't any more detailed than it needed to be. Rough as guts, but it did the job.
Worf and Kor's martial art skills with edged weapons were very handy when it came to cutting out the model and of course they also helped make the glue...Klingon.
In terms of staging this picture I used my workbench as the stand, with a sheet of
burnished aluminium to provide a bit of reflection from below. There's a small desklamp providing broad illumination as well as a roof mounted fluro tube and a bit of filtered, natural daylight. A small torch directed across both figures' faces helped with the contouring. I had fun storyboarding this before the shoot, and was particularly chuffed with substituting the French Curve for a Klingon bat'tleth sword.
Both of these figures are from the superb Asylum range. We are not worthy!
from the W.E.I.R.D. group
(BEST YE SEA THIS LARGE MATEYS, AYE!!!)
Severely diminished in stature by an accidental dose of miniaturising Pym Particles the Incredible Shrinking Iron Man regularly overflew the water recycling tank as he patrolled the amazing microverse. So far, Tiny Tony had been able to rescue several wee beasties from deadly danger.
Heavy rains had swelled the tank to capacity and it was now, relative to the armoured techno-knight’s vertically challenged size, a mighty lake.
To Stark’s complete surprise, as he arced over the body of water he spotted a fully rigged Pyrite Ship arrogantly flaunting the dread Jolly Roger!
“Jumpin’ Jack Kirby!” the red and gold Avenger exclaimed, then rocketed down to land with an authoritative ‘CLANK!!’ on the buccaneer’s wooden deck. Game for a fight, the Pyrite crew scowled their defiance as Iron Man prepared to deliver hot repulsor justice to the scurvy sons of sea rocks; part payment for all of the sorry souls they had themselves dispatched to Davy Jones’ Locker.
For one brief, breathless moment, while the Pyrites drew their cutlasses and pistols, the sun glinted on Shellhead’s harsh exterior, Ironically reminding the scoundrels of the treasure chests that lay below decks crammed with bullion, jewels and plundered booty.
Though the cruel Pyrites did not lack for stones they nevertheless trembled in their sea boots and understood, too late, that their blood soaked riches might as well have been Fool’s Gold for all the good they would do them now.
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Old fashioned Pirates and Piracy have been over romanticised in modern pop culture. Far from the likes of the admittedly charming whimsy of Captain Jack Sparrow lurk the contemporary thuggish bands of sea-thieves in their small, fast boats, raiding from coastal and island bases to snap up passing merchant and passenger shipping. The brutal reality of modern day Piracy is a surprising and often deadly maritime hazard even in the 21st Century.
I’d just been reading about the Somali Pirates who have been preying upon passing shipping when it started to rain heavily, prompting thoughts of a watery photoshoot.
The little toy ship was quite hard to rig as the Iron Pyrites made it top heavy and indeed, a few seconds after I nailed the shot to its yardarm, it capsized, spilling one of the Pyrites overboard where it plunged straight to the bottom of the tank. End of photoshoot!
It was gusting something fierce when I was trying to get this shot in between rain showers and the small plastic sails kept rocking the boat. To stabilise the ship it was necessary to mount it on wire moorings clamped to the rim of the tank. The water was nearly invisible against the black plastic tank sides but floating dust and other particles showed up well, rendering the dark depths rather like a starfield, an effect I was happily surprised by.
Iron Man/Tony Stark is no friend of Pirates, having suffered at their hands a number of times during his career. Besides, they’re bad for business, even in his former trade as an arms dealer, since they seldom pay for their weapons.
"Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
-Kyle Reese in The Terminator
About this photo:
Aside from taking tons of pictures of bald eagles and backyard birds, I've had a creative block for photo ideas around the Quad-Cities in these winter months. One of the relatively new attractions in the Quad-Cities is the Davenport Skybridge:
Destination Quad-Cities article on the Davenport Skybridge
Wikipedia article on the Davenport Skybridge
My previous Skybridge photos were pretty ordinary, or looked like copies of the great photos that many others have captured.
I decided it would be fun to dig up some old action figures and use the Skybridge to make the action figures even more dynamic. This Terminator action figure is only about 5 inches tall, so I had to make it appear larger if I wanted it to really look like a menacing cyborg rather than a puny toy. I laid down on the ground to get a low perspective (made easier by the point-and-shoot Nikon Coolpix P5100's LCD screen), angled the camera upward, and used an inexpensive Opteka close-up filter to try to pull off the Arnold Schwarzenegger-sized illusion.
Feel free to check out my photo of The Batman Knight Cycle action figure on the Skybridge.
Location: Skybridge, Davenport, Iowa
Camera: Nikon Coolpix P5100
Lens Accessories: Opteka Close-Up Lens Filter +4
F-stop: f/2.7
Exposure time: 1/15 sec.
ISO speed: ISO-400
35mm eq. focal length: 35mm (no additional zoom aside from the close-up filter)
Handling: Stabilized the camera against the ground
Mode: Automatic, flash forced off
Lighting: No flash
Photoediting: Adjusted contrast, cleaned up with cloning/blurring, and edited the eye with the radial gradient feature in Photoshop Elements 5
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING IRON MAN - ”IRON MANTIS”
“Focus your chi, calm your mind, metal man. This One has your back.”
"Well okay then Mantis, if you say so...wait...are you TWERKING back there ?!!"
Still disorientated by his exposure to miniaturising Pym Particles the Incredible Shrinking Iron Man is relieved to find that the relatively small Mantis he encountered is actually an avatar of Mandy Celestine, the super powered martial arts trained Avenger he fought alongside in the macro world.
He reflected bemusedly that it was somewhat ironic to meet a ‘Mandy’ who didn’t want to blast him with a double handful of Power Rings! (And wasn’t he glad that his arch nemesis, the Mandarin, couldn’t see him now?)
For the moment secure within his own amazing high tech armoured exoskeleton, with his old ally guarding his Six from the very real dangers of the giant insect world, Tony Stark paused to gather his wits and contemplate his place in the astonishing microverse.
Tony was a creature of habit whereas this version of the Mantis was....a Creature.
Playboy billionaire that he was Stark couldn’t help but regret his friend’s present form, after all, any other time he’d count himself very fortunate indeed to have the exceptionally adept and beautiful warrior woman walk naked on his back!
On the other hand female mantids were known for biting off the heads of their partners during mating, which, given Tony's record of women trying to kill him, would be par for the course.
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This is another shot in a sequence I was lucky enough to bag one day when the tiny mantis walked across the backyard gate. Eventually it calmly climbed over the small Iron Man figurine I placed in its path and continued happily on its way to eviscerate whatever prey insects it was hunting.
As explained in earlier photos in this set the Iron Man figurine is just 28 mm tall and was dug out of a rubber ‘superball’ toy and repainted. That's the remains of the ball, he's standing on, by the way, it makes a handy base and is easier to manipulate than the small figure.
I conjured up the lens flares on a whim and was glad I did. They add a bit of ‘energy’ to the picture that it would otherwise have lacked. Kind of a Manga moment where there’s a pause before something happens. If you want a practical reason for them it's just Iron Man's chestplate mounted uni-beam powering up and Mantis concentrating her Celestial chi!
No Mantids were harmed in the production of this picture.
Find out more about the Marvel Comics character, The Mantis here:
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Bee Gees - Staying alive : www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdVq_vNAAI
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"PUTTING YOUR TONY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS...."
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"You know how to whistle, don't you, Stark? You just put your lips together and... blow.”
Commissioned by the President of Nauru as a gift to the people of Melbourne to celebrate its 150th Anniversary, Alison Weaver and Paul Quinn's life sized bronze figure sculpture, the ‘Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Own Lunch: Batman, Swanston and Hoddle’ (three of Melbourne's early colonial pioneers), has stood on the corner of Swanston and Bourke Streets since 1994.
Tiny Tony doesn't travel all that well, as he's easy to lose and has had a couple of close calls already. But I couldn't resist this shot last year when I was taking the master plate for the "Irony Three" picture elsewhere in my photostream. This particular Iron Man figure was encapsulated in a clear bouncy ball toy, before I dug it out and painted it.
Screenpunk's comment (below) reminded me this picture could also be interpeted in several different ways....
Most innocently, that the statue is secretly one of Tony's spare suits and he's just about to crank it up....
Or that it's actually one of Stark International's employees...taking advantage of the boss visiting Melbourne to kiss arse! (Also giving reality to the phrase, "brown nose". Ahem.)
Mind you, with the way the notional media follows Tony's sexploits the tabloid headline could just as easily read: "Iron Man caught Starkers in Gay Metal Lovenest !!!!"
All silly fun, really.
Of course, the most amazing thing is the REAL rainwater beading the statue. Crikey!
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Chloe Agnew - Walking In The Air : www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQYbKvh2czk
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Retos de la Familia Fotera // Reto XXIV - Agua
Se termina el verano y vuelven los retos de la Familia Fotera en Facebook. Los que nos sigáis, seguramente recordareis que últimamente estábamos con los 4 elementos de la tierra, así que ya hicimos Aire, Fuego y Tierra y ahora, pues tocaba Agua.
En esta ocasión, Junior que todavía no se ha hecho a la idea de que el verano se está terminando, se ha improvisado una curiosa piscina bajo la atenta mirada de papá Wall-E, que resignado, lo único que puede hacer es protegerse con un paragüitas de los chapuzones de su niño. Aix… lo que no hagan los padres por sus retoños.
(BEST SEEN FROM A MOVING TRAM)
The Iron Man movie's Australian theatrical release
afforded a number of creative marketing opportunities for Stark Industries representatives eager to underline the Melbourne Branch's many achievements.
Here a trio of S.I field testers race to catch a Melbourne tram.
Their objective: to subject Stark built helmets to onboard battering by overhead passenger strap handles, surely the most severe impact test that Iron Man technology has endured, second only to blows from the mighty fists of the Incredible Hulk!
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Artists Alison Weaver and Paul Quinn created this iconic statue group which stands on the corner of Swanston and Bourke streets, Melbourne, Australia.
Unveiled on the 20th of April, 1994 the life sized bronze figure sculpture the ‘Three Businessmen Who Brought Their Own Lunch: Batman, Swanston and Hoddle’ is a whimsical tribute to three of Melbourne's early colonial pioneers.
It was presented by President of Nauru Bernard Dowiyogo to the people of Melbourne celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the Australian city.
The Iron Man movie helmets are (left to right) the Mark 2, Mark 1 and Mark 3.
I shot the 6 inch and 12 inch movie tie-in action figures against a green screen and then 'shopped them in.
There's several more iconic Melbourne landmarks and sculptures that I've also got my eyeslits on....
Oh, and there's an Easter Egg in the picture too.... ;)
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf : www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOg5VxrRTi0&ob=av2n
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1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Claude François - Comme D'habitude : www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz6MfPGdeW8
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Retos de la Familia Fotera // Reto XVI - Película // Film
Llega la edición nº 16 de los Retos de la Familia Fotera, dedicada en esta ocasión a las películas. Aquí tenemos a Wall-E y a sus amigos, combatiendo la censura en Internet y la transparencia política bajo la máscara de Guy Fawkes, en un guiño a la película V de Vendetta.
+info: thinkinfreak.com/blog/2012/01/25/retopelicula-la-foto/
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Vivaldi - Les quatre saisons / Le printemps : www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-dYNttdgl0
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LIKE IT OR LUMP IT !!
Worf and a close ally immediately took Klaang up on his offer to help bend the mounting brackets for the spaceship hull plates.
But it was too much of an honour.
And went straight to Klaang's head.
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There are several dozen aluminium mounting brackets holding the medium density fibreboard hull plates of the spaceship together. I cut them with a hacksaw from flat bar stock.
Most are about 20 centimetres long and either flat or bent at various angles and positions depending on how the plates angle together. They all have a couple of 8 millimetre diameter holes drilled in them to take the mounting bolts. Placement of the holes was carefully done so that no bolt would be closer than 5 centimetres to a hull plate edge, in order to minimise the likelihood of stress fracturing the panels under load.
Where several plates come together the mounting brackets can form quite complicated little 'nests' which I had to label in order not to confuse the many similar parts from the identical port and starboard sections of the ship.
Bending the brackets wasn't difficult using the bench vice and/or my anvil and a rubber mallet.
But since the Klingon from Star Trek: Enterprise's pilot episode, Broken Bow, happened to be named Klaang an alternative strategy for the documentation picture popped into my...head.
So, this is how the Klingons get those 'bumps'.....
I really wanted some dramatic shadows projected onto the masonite peg board so this is underlit with a halogen desk lamp from beneath the edge of the benchtop set up.
They're all Asylum figures, which means they have lots of articulations in the joints, which helped facilitate the group pose even if it did take a lot of mucking around...
Both of the flanking Klingon figures are Worf, but I've done a little digital cosmetic surgery on one to change his identity. I bet Doctor Bashir wishes it was so easy to create makeovers for agents sent from Deep Space Nine into the Klingon Empire!
Of course, it would have been less painful to just get my Bender robot to do the brackets. It's his thing.
But, y'know, we are are talking about the Klingons and they always figure as long as they feel pain they know they're still alive!
Besides, there's no problem a Klingon officer can't solve by using his brains...
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Sacha Distel - La Belle Vie : www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQL7nx6HvM4
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"UNDER DURAS..."
Budgeting the construction of the one-to-one scale Klingon spaceship prop was a matter of diligent calculation.
A specialist in accounting was called in and encouraged to do his best work.....
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These are some (but by no means all) of the purchases made during the construction of this project:
ALL PURPOSE RED SPRAY ENAMEL (X2) - $5.96
SPRAY ENAMEL COPPER HAMMERED METAL FINISH (X2) - $23.42
VINYL TABLECLOTH CRYSTAL CLEAR (137CM X 1MM) - $26.80
BAR ALUMINIUM FLAT 2M (X7) - $77.77
MEDIUM DENSITY FIBREBOARD VARIOUS SIZES AND THICKNESSES (ABOUT 12 SHEETS) - $48.15
DRILL BITS - $12.25
HEXHEAD BOLTS - $39.00
(All prices in Aussie roo-bles)
The vinyl tablecloth listed was especially heavy clear plastic that I used to make the transparent canopy for the spaceship....perspex sheeting would undoubtedly have been better but wouldn't have fit within the budget.
Fortunately, I didn't have to buy much paint, since I already had in stock a four litre can of acrylic that was already tinted yellow. Adding blue and touches of other colour gave me the basic green hue that I needed for the main body of the ship.
Regarding the picture, I decided that those bloody Duras Sisters, Lursa and B'Etor, were in the best position to help the Ferengi with figures....
The most irritating thing about this set-up was that the two Klingon sheilas kept overbalancing and falling down. Guess it was their instruments of torture that kept making them topple!
(BEST VIEWED LARGE)
"TOE-NEEE SCHTARK, MAZES YA FEEL HESH THE COOLLLL EXEC WIT' THE HEART OF SCHTEEL..."
("Sure, there was a bit of a dust-up in the Green Room before he came into the studio, I thought it was just a fan thing. y'know? He seemed okay to put to air. How was I to know he'd had an armoured skinful? Right-o, he was walking as crooked as a dog's hind leg but I just I thought his gyros were playing silly buggers! I mean, I've heard the rumours about his boss, Mr Stark, but I had no idea his bodyguard was on the turps as well!"*)
BU' IRON MAN, ALL JETSCH AFLAME HE FIGHTS 'N FIGHTS WIT' RE-RE-REPULSIVE RAYS...!"
("Too bloody right I turned the microphone off, when he started to sing... but he overrode it with some bastard of a gadget in that damn armour of his. Strewth, he was just supposed to have a yarn with me about Stark International's recent charitable donation to the Hanso Foundation's DHARMA Initiative...say, you don't reckon I could sue Stark for this, do you? "*)
*From Broadcaster Robert Jan's statement to the Media Watch monitoring programme during investigations into the so-called "Irongate" on-air incident, when Iron Man ran amok during a live transmission of an episode of the Zero-G radio show on Melbourne's 3RRR FM.
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I took this one on the spur of the moment when opportunity presented itself. Just ambient, on-location lighting in the studio.
I deliberately broke two of the 'rules' of realistic toy photography of course.
1) Thou shalt not film from an elevated angle 'cos it makes them look like the toys they are since that's the way we normally see them.
2) Thous shalt not film them with normal scale objects 'cos it emphasises their toyness.
The conventional way to do this shot would have been to have the figure large in the foreground to create a forced perspective so that I.M looked 1:1 scale with the studio. Or to enlarge him as a seperate Photoshop layer.
Reckon this way was funnier all round.
Uh, yes, I did happen to have an Ultimates Iron Man figure in my bag..what of it?
I was talking about the new Iron Man movie and I like to have props when I broadcast...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Marc Lavoine - Elle a les yeux revolver : www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRClEJY8g1I
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1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations : www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCeD_6Y3GQc
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23 de abril, un día para disfrutar de la cultura, los libros, pasear por las Ramblas de Barcelona y disfrutar de las numerosas actividades que se preparan, para tan especial ocasión.
Este año, para variar un poco, he querido hacer una “libre adaptación” de la leyenda de Sant Jordi, (por así decirlo) que podéis ver y leer en el siguiente link ;)
+info: thinkinfreak.com/blog/2013/04/23/felic-sant-jordi-2013/
Aunque parezca mentira, la playa es un imán para Wall-E que siempre se queda embobado mirando el horizonte.
1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Boyz 2 Men - A Song For Mama : www.youtube.com/watch?v=tap90z44WR8
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1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Art Mengo - Ultra marine : www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyQBQ6-VNWM
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I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Christmas is approaching quickly. Hope you guys aren't too busy and stressed out allready, but manage some breaks for fun and photography too! :)
Oh, and no, I just can't keep away from them Lego's...
A primera hora de la mañana, no hay nada mejor que un buen café //
Early in the morning, there is nothing better than a good coffee
Reto 30 días de verano para foteros. www.flickr.com/groups/30diasfoteros
Papá Wall-E bañando a Junior. ¿Se puede ser más padrazo?
+info thinkinfreak.com/blog/2012/09/06/retoagua-los-descartes/
Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Nina Simone - Here Comes The Sun : www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2XCgcxsvTg
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1 mois avec une poupée nommée Ghoulia / 1 month with a doll named Ghoulia > album
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Une photo, une chanson / A photo, a song
Lisa Ekdahl - My Heart belongs to Daddy : www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAvsh0VfdLU
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IRONY MAN - "A COOL EXEC"
The Marvel Super Heroes: Iron Man Cartoon - Main Title Theme Lyrics (1966)
"Tony Stark
Makes you feel
He's a cool exec
With a heart of steel.
As Iron Man,
All jets ablaze,
He fights and smites
With repulsor rays!
A blaze of power!
Iron Man!
Amazing armor!
Iron Man!"
When billionare inventor Tony Stark designed his Iron Man variant suit of Inferno armour it was intended to shield him from the fearsome heat of an active volcano. At first glance that might not seem to be a very useful capability.
Well.
You'd be amazed at just how many super villians thought that they were the VERY FIRST to think of constructing their lairs within volcanoes. Strangely enough, hardly any of them thought to tap the immense geothermal power of their hellish neighbourhoods, instead choosing to rely upon that old standby of evilness... nuclear reactors.
On the other hand, Iron Man HAD seen some pretty spectacular lava lamp lit decor!
Still, the highly specialised Inferno armour had other uses...
In response to a call from Stark International's Melbourne Division he'd flown over to Australia just in time to run headlong into the dreadful 2008 bushfire season. The Inferno suit, of course, shrugged off the highest maximum temperature in Melbourne's recorded history, 47.9 degrees Celsius or around 118 degrees Farenheit.
But Aussie cities baked. Hot winds gusted. Vegetation dried. And the Victorian countryside went up in flames on February 7th.
Tony had experienced similar conditions in both California and Canada and as Iron Man had even helped with search and rescue in both those fire prone places. He'd sometimes literally lent a hand, using his palm mounted repulsors to blast fire breaks ahead of fire fronts. As Victoria began to burn Tony personally committed S.I's in-country manpower and resources to help pitch in with the fire fighting effort. Stark's aviation assets proved especially useful.
Iron Man not excluded.
The Australians named similar disasters after the days they'd fallen on. Black Friday. Ash Wednesday. Today was a Saturday. He wondered what they'd call this one?
During a rare break he'd mentioned it to one of the bravely laconic local fireman who wearily took one look at Stark's soot covered armour and laconically quipped, "Strewth mate, Iron in the Fire day!"
The red and gold Avenger smiled grimly at the memory as he strapped on a fire supression blaster pack and prepared to head out again...even for a bonafide super hero it was a long day, and a longer night....and damned little enough else to find humour in.
Still, as the Aussie 'fireys' were fond of saying, "No worries mate".
And THEY weren't even wearing air conditioned invincible armour.
"Hmm," Stark mused as he lifted off, "I might just do something about that...."
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I paused to set up this shot while I was busy keeping our garden alive with recycled water on Searing Saturday, pondering the wide variation in conditions across our sunburnt country. Bushfires across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia while floods surged across North Queensland. Immense property damage and the death toll, both human and animal, is yet to be fully known.
I was comfortable enough as I worked, hot but well shaded by a sombrero or a water soaked pith helmet depending on how windy it was (costumers tend to have these things handy!) and with ready access to air conditioning and cooling drinks.
Spared more than one thought for the poor sods caught in the fire and the gallant fire fighters battling the blazes.
Hell already has its heroes.
Still, we can use all the help we can get, so Avengers Assemble, and Thunderbirds Are Go!
If only...
The Inferno armour is one of Hasbro's new Iron Man Concept armour variant action figures. It's a beaut, what with its semi-transparent magma red finish, thermal control fins and backpack. I especially like that the pauldrons (shoulder guards) are firmly held in place with metal pins...solving an infamous problem that has dogged most of the six-inch Iron Man figures spun off from the I.M movie. Which have an annoying tendancy to pop their pauldrons off when their arms are raised.
(By the way, the tune of the theme song from the 1966 Iron Man cartoon can be heard a couple of times in the 2007 movie...have fun listening for it!)
No daisies (see background!) were harmed during the making of this photo but, strewth, it was so hot outside that the action figure started to wilt in sympathy!