Slinkachu

Back in a February post I mentioned Slinkachu.  His was the first work I had seen using the tiny OO/HO gauge people and I loved it.

His Little People project began in 2006.  It involves the remodelling and painting of miniature model train set characters, which he places, and leaves, on the street. It is both a street art installation project and a photography project.  He says 'The street-based side of my work plays with the notion of surprise and I aim to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes I set up, more evident through the photography, and the titles I give these scenes aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed. But underneath this, there is always some humour. I want people to be able to empathise with the tiny people in my works'.

The High Life

 

Spilt Milk

These two are of a creation called 'Accident'.  In all of his Little People work Slinkachu shows a close shot as well as a shot or two showing the 'bigger picture' (pun intended!).  I particularly like this piece.

 

Just found this, thought I'd share

Great picture of Giovanni Soldini, an Italian sailor who has become famous for lone sailing.
I found this image while researching the photographer Nadav Kander.  It's not the best quality but I hope that you can see the yachts and palm trees on his shoulder....

Research - David Levinthal

David Levinthal began his works using toy figurines with the series Hitler Moves East in 1977.  It was conceived with a package of toy Nazi soldiers posed on the floor of his parents home and became a recreation of the Germans’ 1941 invasion of Russia.

Since the success of this first publication he has continued to photograph toy people in a wide array of projects.  His works pertinent to my project include Modern Romance (1984-86), The Wild West (1987-89), American Beauties (1989-90), Desire (1990-91), Mein Kampf (1993-94), Baseball (2003-04), The Passion (2005), Hockey (2007), and I.E.D (2008).

In his work Levinthal makes use of a very shallow depth of field to almost create a sense of motion within the image.  The pictures below are from Hitler Moves East and I feel that they are closest to what I hope to achieve.  They appear, at first glance, to be pictures of real people and real events rather than a tableau created in a studio from model people.

 

                                                        

His latest project I.E.D again uses a battleground as its scenario, this time the ongoing military work in Afghanistan.

Levinthal is aware of the power of toys: "Ever since I began working with toys, I have been intrigued with the idea that these seemingly benign objects could take on such incredible power and personality simply by the way they were photographed. I began to realize that by carefully selecting the depth of field and making it narrow, I could create a sense of movement and reality that was in fact not there."

http://www.davidlevinthal.com/index.html

Field Trip in the name of 'research'

Today I dragged my kids to Bekonscot Model Village in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.
I had heard of it previously but never felt the need to visit until this project.  I was expecting all sort of complaints from my children, but was somewhat surprised when they all enjoyed it (even the teenager!).  We actually walked around a couple of times, spotting different things each time.  The level of detail put into the 1.5 acres is really impressive.
The model village first began to be built in 1928 and has grown and evolved since then.  More details can be found at http://www.bekonscot.co.uk/history/full/ but be warned, the site is somewhat annoying, employing not only comic sans (cringe), but the home page greets you with a friendly 'hullo!'    bleurgh!!!!!
anyway..... I took the camera, funnily enough, and here are a few pictures from the day.  I have included a couple of images to show the scale (that being the name of the game after all) and the rest I have tweaked, just for fun.