Boys will be boys... Toys will be toys...

Just last week Monday, when the whole platoon were kinda forced to take the day off, Joel took the opportunity to exploit ask me to photograph part of his Power Rangers Megazord collection as well as 2 of his Transformer toys. Given the opportunity to kill time as well as to actually do something productive, I agreed to this request which turned out to be pretty intense, insane but yet, ultimately fun!

So we met up pretty early in the morning for breakfast before the photo shoot over at my place at Compass Point. After which, we headed over to his sister's house where he temporary stored his toys because there were three HUGE bags of them and it wouldn't be convenient to bring it around for breakfast now, would it?

Then, off for the shoot!!

Well of course, I'm blogging this because I'm very bored right now and have nothing better to do and also, since the photos are so shamelessly well taken, I might as well show them off right! However, I'm only featuring 10 photos out of the 99 that I settled on after post-processing (I had like almost 400 frames to pick from and spent like 24 hours in total editing the entire film!) so I do not lag your computer too much.

If you are keen on the full album, be sure to drop by my Facebook page yes? If you can't access it, then tell me! I'll see what I can do for you because you know, I don't really accept strangers on my Facebook page, you know you know? Because I'm so popular.


Let's start!!

In business term (even though this is not a paid shoot), the one on the right is my client, so to speak, Joel. He owns a massive collection of Power Rangers figurines and some of which, from what I understand, are actually rare and worth quite a lot of money. Guess he wants to take photos of them for his own pleasure as well as to archive...

Further in the frame is Jun Sheng and he came over to help us with the shoot because obviously, a photographer and the owner is not enough to figure out how to assemble these Rubix-robotic-toys.

Unless you live in a cave or under a stone, this vehicle shouldn't be a stranger to you. Yes~ It's Optimus Prime from Transformers! And obviously, it transforms. The first time I met this toy was back when I was in Boston doing my internship with GAMBIT - one of my friends actually bought one there and I know it costs a bomb (three-digit for sure) because other than the fact that it can transform into the robot, the proportions and the build of the toy is excellent.

If you find the Rubix cube challenging or unsolvable (in my unfortunate case), then you should give Optimus Prime a go! It's so difficult that even referring to the complex instruction manual, which no one should throw away because you might leave yourself with a toy that looks like a pile of scrap plastic, it took forever to assemble it to the robot form and back.

Optimus Prime in its vehicle form was the first toy that I photographed that day because Joel said that it would take forever to transform it to the robot form so in the meantime, I can photograph something else. Smart move.

Shaun was the one who transformed Optimus Prime to and fro and yeap, the photo does make him look sleepy. This is when he finally managed to transform the robot form back to the vehicle form for easy storage. Took him another lifetime to accomplish.

Here's Bumble Bee (I WANT ONE!!) - the yellow sports car with a personality. Well apparently, Bumble Bee seemed to be easier to work with because I don't remember hearing any complaints regarding it that day. Due to the fact that it would also take some time to transform, I photographed it right after Optimus Prime. And partially because I'm pretty excited to photograph one of my favorite Transformers even know I know nothing about the cartoons or movie.

I personally think that Bumble Bee was the Most Photogenic Robot that I had photographed that day because it's capable of doing so many poses and his head can be moved~ In fact, I took some close up of his face (which unfortunately won't be showed here because I'm too lazy to find that photo to upload but you can find it on Facebook) and it was really cute. Another three-digit robot in terms of it's price. Joel's rich~

The major headache challenge of the day, 7 boxes of Power Rangers Samurai Megazords! You might think that we're well overaged for Power Rangers (aged 19 - 23) but we still love our childhood heros. Honestly, I have not watched this season of Power Rangers before but the Megazords are pretty interesting and complex. Well here's the 5 Power Rangers in case you need some visual reference to know which series we're talking about - taken from the top of the Megazord's box.

A close up on the default Megazord for this series of the Power Rangers. I have no clue what it's called... Basically, in Power Rangers, each hero gets his own Megazord - also known as an enormous fighting robot, which can be combined together to form a larger robot. Cool stuff since I was young~ What's really neat about these Megazords are that they have various versions and configurations and each Megazord can combine with one another for a different look and purpose (in the show, at least). For instance the next photo...

This is the classic Megazord combined with a clawed, lobster looking like one. Cool eh? There are a thousand and one configurations and there are more than just these few. Like I've previously mentioned, Joel brought 7 boxes of Power Rangers Megazords and each have their own transformations and combinations and permutations. Seriously, the Math is crazy~

Furthermore, there were some combinations that were so huge that the entire configuration couldn't fit in my light box and I had to dissemble it just to get photos of those configurations and the post-process was the most tedious I had ever Ever EVER done in my life in regards to this form of photography. But, it was a great learning experience for me~ :D

Besides, who actually get to play with robots the whole day and take photos of them? Not little kids~ Us!! People in the army! The irony~~

As you could have imagined, for robot appreciators, my room was like a candy store. For me, I think it was in an epic mess. Plus, my room is not very big but I had to house 4 guests plus myself, making it 5 human beings packed in this sardine can. Pei Da had no other space to sit in so he made himself extremely comfortable on my bed and napped throughout the shoot since he arrived (he arrived later). But without him, we wouldn't have someone drive us for lunch when we had a break - which translates to "My camera ran out of battery and requires charging in the midst of the shoot". Rest deserved, yes? :)


I must say, the entire process of the shoot was really fun because you get to play with toys (hee hee~) and photograph them! Well even though I didn't really get my hands into assembling the robots because they are wayyyyy too complicated for my simplistic mind, I enjoyed watching how a toy can be so versatile.

On top of that, who actually really play with toys nowadays? Kids these days have the iPads, iPhones, PSP, DS, what-electronic-nots you've got and I bet they hardly play with these toys anymore. No wonder Toys R Us are closing down one after another. I can even bet that game shops get more customers these days than toy shops do during Christmas.

Sigh~ As technology advances, so do the things people do. That was the rationale behind my 21st birthday - TOY MUSEUM, to revisit the days when we were young and when we used to play with things like cars, robots, Barbies, etc. It's still good to know that there are collectors out there who love their toys. :)

Well anyway, Joel said that he might have another assignment for me soon and I'm actually looking forward to it, even though I know that it would probably mean that it would be a full day shoot with endless processing at the end of it but ultimately, for good photos, it will definitely be worth it! :D