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My struggle with Instagram (and social media)

Maëlick - 5 Comments

I struggle with social media. Particularly with Instagram.

It’s been going on for years now. More than once, I wrote a draft for a blog post about it, but never posted any of them. It gradually became worse, but it felt like it couldn’t get any worse during this summer.

I still check Instagram multiple times a day. However, each time I scroll the app on my phone, I feel the same: there’s barely anything interesting. I feel completely disengaged from the platform as a viewer.

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How I failed at recreating one of my toy photos

Maëlick - 2 Comments

Sometimes you make an image that you love, but end up not entirely happy with it. There is a tiny detail that you think is a bit off. You might notice it as soon as you take it. Or it might be years later. Eventually, you decide to attempt to fix it by reshooting the image.

The sad truth is that this is not always a successful endeavor.

Continue reading “How I failed at recreating one of my toy photos”
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Celebrating 4 years of LEGO Pirate Photography with the Pirates of Barracuda Bay

Maëlick - 4 Comments

Today is a special day.
The new LEGO Ideas set, the Pirates of Barracuda Bay, is publicly revealed.

But Sunday, I noticed it’s even more special to me.

For the past 10 days, I’ve been playing with the new Pirates of Barracuda Bay LEGO Ideas set, taking pictures for LEGO. All this in secret. This has been a very special project for me as I have a special relationship with pirates.

And today, on the day I can finally talk about it, it also appears it is the 4th anniversary of one of my favorite photos. The One that changed everything.

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My best skeleton pictures for 2019

eatmybones - 1 Comment

After reading Maëlick’s article about choosing his best 2019 picture (and how hard it is!), I wanted to try the same exercise on my side.

Obviously, it’s much easier for me, as I didn’t post a lot of pictures this year and I didn’t shoot a lot either.

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Best Photo of 2019?

Maëlick - 1 Comment

Every year, towards the end of the year, Flickr creates a group called “Your Best Shot”. This year’s group will be open on Monday.

Every year, it is an occasion for me to reflect on my own photography. Decide what is my favorite and most representative photo of the year. Reflect on a journey and think about how to plan the future. But this year I actually have a hard time choosing a single photo.

For the past four years, choosing my favorite photo has been relatively easy. From the time I had taken and edited each of them, I had that feeling of “it might be the best of this year”. But so far, it didn’t happen in 2019.

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The photos no one will ever see

Maëlick - 10 Comments

I struggle with social media. I talked about it recently, here and on my own blog.

It’s been over a year now that I’ve had trouble finding the motivation to keep on with the various social media platforms I use(d).

Social Media Tiredness

I’ve been struggling with being active on social media as a viewer.

After a few years, a part of me feels like it’s always the same. I often find myself scrolling through Instagram, simply double tapping a few photos that caught my attention for more than half a second, and then directly jumping to the next one.

There are still many photos that amaze me. At the same time, there are so many photos out there that it’s hard to truly enjoy everything. It takes too much time.

Social media has become to me the fast-food of photography. It has nothing to do with the quality of the photos, but rather the way we consume it. Like fast food, social media is made to be consumed quickly and it doesn’t encourage you to spend enough time to truly enjoy someone else’s photography.

(For enjoying others’ photography, I find meeting with them in the real world, exchanging prints and hanging them at home to be more effective.)

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Toy Photography, Hype, and Pop Culture Overdose

Maëlick - 23 Comments

Does too much hype kills the hype?

Every time a new CMF series is released, my IG feed is flooded with pictures of the new Minifigures. While some people manage to buy them in stores before the official release date, I’m usually in the category of people who have to wait a few weeks to get them. Indeed, Finnish toy stores (and supermarkets) can be slow getting newly released LEGO sets.

I’m rarely in a hurry when it comes to getting something new, so it’s fine with me. But with the CMF, I noticed that by the time I can buy them, I’ve seen so many pictures that I don’t have any inspiration left to take pictures.

Getting from LEGO a couple of CMF to review for the blog has one advantage: I can play with the new minifigs before Instagram is invaded with pictures of them. It’s how I fell in love with Aria. Without the great opportunity to play earlier with her, I would probably have had very little interest in photographing her. She’s still today one of my favorite Minifigures, always accompanying me outside and still going out in front of my camera regularly.

My latest photo of Aria.

Sometimes, I can experience the same feeling of tiredness with “regular” sets. Lately, it was the LEGO Movie 2 Space Squad. It’s undoubtedly an amazing set. As soon as I saw the first official images, I couldn’t wait to buy it. But by the time I got my own copy in late December, I was already fed up with seeing pictures of the pink spaceman everywhere. So I gave up the idea of using the spaceman for any photo.

Pop Culture Overdose

But besides the more occasional hype coming with the release of new toys, I’m experiencing more and more that feeling on a whole new level. I’m getting tired of pop culture.

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Looking back in the past

eatmybones - 5 Comments

Today I was looking at my pictures from our latest toy safari in Paris wondering: “What can I write on the blog? Do I already have the white page syndrome?!”.

And I came across this picture, taken near the Louvre, on the « Colonnes de Buren », from the famous French artist Daniel Buren. Continue reading “Looking back in the past”

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Week 41. Harmony

Boris - 2 Comments

har·mo·ny

(här′mənē)n.pl.har·mo·nies
1.a. An orderly or pleasing combination of elements in a whole:
color harmony; the order and harmony of the universe.
b. A relationship in which various components exist together 
without destroying one another: 
different kinds of fish living in harmony.
c. A relationship characterized by a lack of conflict or by agreement, 
as of opinion or interest: family harmony.

The Origin

The Origin of Harmony … special thanks to the Google Dictionary
Continue reading “Week 41. Harmony”