Lego Ecto-1

A couple of weeks ago I posted a couple of time lapses of me building some Lego models. At the end of that post I promised some better shots of the properly brilliant Ecto-1 model I assembled. The self-explanatory title of this post should suggest that it does in fact contain those promised pictures.

It was, I should think, entirely obvious that once I’d spent the time building such a good-looking model, that I’d spent some time appreciating it in the only way I really understand.

The first shot I took was on the largely neutral canvas of my desk, which currently has a cutting mat sitting atop it. This adds an interesting grid pattern which to me is reminiscent of computer game blank free-roaming environments.

Whilst I quite like the grid pattern as a base for photographing something like this, I found it a bit lacking. I needed to add something extra to make the images more interesting.

Improvising based on something I’d seen done elsewhere, I loaded up an image onto my computer screen as a backdrop, then grabbed a small stool to raise the model up to its level. This wasn’t quite enough, so I draped a grey t-shirt over the top to create a suitable floor. The end result is a bit different if nothing else.

This is the set up I was using – ultimately quite simple, but giving a decent result.

With the setup in place, I was then free to explore. I was keen to get the model in from all angles – including a few classics from the film, which I used my macro lens for.

I was also keen to get in shots of the Lego Minifigures of Egon, Ray, Peter and Winston, both individually and as a team with the Ectomobile.

I was also keen to capture a lot of the details and colours of the model itself.

I’ve put a selection of my favourite images in a gallery you can click through below. I’ll be sticking a fuller set on Flickr next week.

Behind the scenes of this post, there was also a bit of a big change. This is the first post of images I’ve published that has been edited only in Lightroom. It was recently announced that support for Aperture – my current image editor of choice – and this coincided with my me attending a demonstration of editing in Lightroom on the Canon Experience Day I recently posted about. These two things have finally seen me take the plunge and start using Lightroom. So far I’m really please with the results I’m getting, but as I transition from using one system to another I still find myself getting frustrated when I find that something that was very easy in Aperture is more difficult in Lightroom, or when a keyboard shortcut that has become second nature in over five years of using Aperture doesn’t do the same thing in Lightroom. I’m sure I’ll get over it.