Can we get Indy around the globe ?

MDP78 said:

Hopefully the next folks in line will continue the tradition of taking fun and unique pictures, if not with forced-perspective shots.

As far as the "faked" pictures go, I'd say they were only partially faked. I did maintain a certain level of integrity with the pictures, meaning Indy was where he is in the pics! It would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise to copy and paste a pic of him in any background, as I or anyone on the boards can just copy and paste a pic of TI on any place/backdrop he hasn't really been to.

Click to expand...

Its all good to know, and great to see a different approach.

I would have liked to taken pictures that were completely in focus, but I didn't have the time or equipment. So a cell phone pic from a NYC Subway would have to do!

Nice to see the "making of" pics and I certainly wouldn't mind a few inspired "CGI" shots, (with a clear disclaimer!).

Nice work.

I always enjoy a little peek behind the scenes. Thanks for posting those.

Must admit I did a little 'wow-look-at-that-how did-he-do-it' at the balcony pic! Good to know he was really there, as-it-were.

BTW, part of the fun of running around with Indy is the 'guerrilla shots' - so any comments made on the fuzzies should be taken as humor, not criticism. We all have shots that are not perfect but can never be repeated!

Look forward to the remaining pics, getting TI back for round 2, and talking of rounds, some beer!! Cheers!

I'm starting to think coffee table book. Best of, with maps, scraps, and small little raps.

Blurb.com comes to mind.

So, first you take a pic of a location with him in there, and then another without - and later crop 'em together. Clever.

Some people would still call it cheating, I guess. I personally am calling it "thinking outside the box".

Finn said:

So, first you take a pic of a location with him in there, and then another without - and later crop 'em together.

Click to expand...

Yes sir, you got it right! Not as easy as it sounds though especially I wasn't carrying a tripod around (hence some of the fuzzy pics). Even though I thought I didn't move the camera when I took Indy down I did. I had to copy sections of the pics without Indy piece by piece and massage them in PS via free transform to make them conform to the pic with Indy. I'd be happy to provide the PSD file to anyone interested.

Finn said:

Some people would still call it cheating, I guess. I personally am calling it "thinking outside the box".

Click to expand...

Man, you can read me like a book! I was about to say that in order to take more interesting pictures you have to think outside the box. Yes, it can also be classified cheating but not to the point where it makes the concept of getting TI around the globe totally pointless.

MDP78 said:

As far as the "faked" pictures go, I'd say they were only partially faked. I did maintain a certain level of integrity with the pictures, meaning Indy was where he is in the pics! It would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise to copy and paste a pic of him in any background, as I or anyone on the boards can just copy and paste a pic of TI on any place/backdrop he hasn't really been to. I'm sure our fellow Raveners would rather see the pics I've posted above than these:

Click to expand...

Please don't take it as a harsh criticism, MDP. I know that the figure was truly in those locations and the lighting, shadows and colour tones all match up. Believe me, if they were 100% bogus, I'd have called you on it right away!

P.S. Thanks for your reply about the Philippine-American War. Would like to see that mural.

Finn said:

So, first you take a pic of a location with him in there, and then another without - and later crop 'em together. Clever.

Some people would still call it cheating, I guess. I personally am calling it "thinking outside the box".

Click to expand...

It's surprising that anyone would need to see the 'behind-the-scenes' photos to figure out how they were done. It's a standard procedure and was obvious to me, straight off the bat.

As a photo-retoucher by profession, doing the same thing crossed my mind when I had Indy but eventually decided against it. (That said, one of my photos does have a slight modification but it's impossible to spot.)

NickTurner said:

BTW, part of the fun of running around with Indy is the 'guerrilla shots' - so any comments made on the fuzzies should be taken as humor, not criticism. We all have shots that are not perfect but can never be repeated!

Click to expand...

Indeed. Another favourite of mine from MDP's batch happens to be a blurry one: The photo with the old telephone.

Anyway, Nick, I'm really looking forward to seeing Indy with your tank model out on the street.

No worries, Stoo. I have to admit that when I saw the word "faked" I thought I'd to clear a few things up before anyone gets the wrong idea.

Traveling Indy's Philippine Excursion (Extended/Director's Cut)

Ok folks, I'm getting to the last leg (well, almost) of Indy pictures courtesy of yours truly. This time I'd like to show some of the pics that didn't make it past the cutting room. As some of you may have already experienced, our photos don't always turn out as well as we'd like to. I do have a few of those types of pictures in this collection, but some of them are also here because they didn't seem to fit the story I wanted for Traveling Indy, even though the photos themselves look nice. So without further ado, I present to you Traveling Indy's Philippine Excursion "Extended/Director's Cut" :

First off, we have Indy in Corregidor Island entering a steel door at one of the ruins:



Here's Indy going upstairs. I was initially going to use this in the main presentation since there's no "cheating" required in this photo but I thought I already had way too many pictures of Indy's back so I decided to use the one where you see his right side. This staircase is actually a "mirror" of what you saw earlier, so there are two ways to get up this structure.



Here's a pic of Indy by one of the battery guns. I tried a few times to take this picture right but inspite of multiple manual adjustments to my camera's aperture, it always seemed to focus on either Indy or the background. I decided it was best to just leave it out of the set:



Here's something that I should've included but totally forgot. Indy with a full view of the lighthouse. He is rather fuzzy in the pic, but it would've given context as to where he is in the main presentation pic.



This one's for Stoo! Here's the Philippine-American War carved mural I mentioned a few posts back. I know some of the text can't be read but it doesn't look natural for Indy to look from the side of the picture as for anyone else, so I put him somewhat in the middle of the pic at the expense of blocking the writing on the base.



Here's Indy at Banaoang River. This is just a different view from the one I posted in the main presentation.



At the river bank, again just a different view. I'm not sure if it's visible in the pic but there's a zipline under construction that would cross the river from one side to the other. Would've been fun to have some Indy on a zipline pics.



Here's Indy viewing an old, Spanish style bell tower. Me and my company went there on Christmas Day so it was closed. My sister-in-law told me you can pretty much view the whole city of Vigan at the top. Would've been nice to get Indy's pic up there but time was not on our side.



Here's another one for Stoo: Indy by the old phone. This pic would've been another victim of photo editing had I chosen it. I took the other pic instead because of the "Hands off, please" sign.



And lastly, here's a pic of Indy boiling water in a kettle! I decided not to crop my hand off the pic so you can see that he's "using" an old school wood burner. I couldn't think of a way to figure this into Indy's story so I decided to leave it out even though I really wanted to include it. Perhaps, Indy did a little bit of an "immersion" into the way of living of the locals?



Hope you guys like the pics. I'll be posting some fun with TI pics soon, and those should be the final pics from me.

Stoo said:

It's surprising that anyone would need to see the 'behind-the-scenes' photos to figure out how they were done. It's a standard procedure and was obvious to me, straight off the bat.

Click to expand...

Which begs a question. Why didn't YOU utilize it? It obviously appears you didn't (and even if you did, not nearly as masterfully as MDP).

Besides, obvious or not, the man was due some compliments for it, weren't he now?



<small>And yeah, I can admit it. While I can tinker the hell out of any box with circuitry in it, inside and outside, I'm pretty much a crude amateur what comes to the art of capturing imagery.</small>

Tired out from a long journey and many hours on a plane, Indy has a strange dream....



Disclaimer. Do not try this at home. Indy cannot really fly. Professional stunt men involved (by using a stick to keep Indy in the air) and post-processing was used to erase stick. Your mileage may vary. Shipping and handling apply. No animals were harmed in the production of this silliness. Clock loaned by General Grievous and is copyrighted by ILM

NickTurner said:

Tired out from a long journey and many hours on a plane, Indy has a strange dream....

Disclaimer. Do not try this at home. Indy cannot really fly. Professional stunt men involved (by using a stick to keep Indy in the air) and post-processing was used to erase stick. Your mileage may vary. Shipping and handling apply. No animals were harmed in the production of this silliness. Clock loaned by General Grievous and is copyrighted by ILM

Click to expand...

Are you sure it's from jet lag and not from recreational substances? LOL!

Good stuff, thanks for the laughs!

Fun pics with Traveling Indy!

Ok guys, it's time: time to break out of the usual (and "serious") stuff (i.e. perspective shots) so I took these fun pics of Indy just for the heck of it.

So here's Traveling Indy, with all his accumulated accessories so far:



As he traveled with me in the Philippines, it was just natural for him to pick some stuff up along the way. My sister-in-law's youngest brother, who also happens to be a photography enthusiast, was amazed at all the photos posted thus far here on the Raven before I even started posting mine. He decided to give me something for the holidays, which also happens to be for Indy.



The text in parenthesis literally translates to, "Indy needs this!" When I peeked in the paper bag, my natural reaction was to LOL! This (err, she) was in the bag (with an accompanying stand):



As you can see, he's a rather silly person. Ya, let's get Indy a female companion in the Philippines!



There were more things he picked up on the way. In Vigan, he got himself 2 things. One is a "golden" fridge magnet of a kalesa (local horse carriage) made of resin.



The other is a knife that has a matching wooden sheath. This is something I want Indy to bring along with him in his future adventures, as it fits him better than the fridge magnet. I'm not sure how safe it is though, as it could get confiscated by the likes of TSA or whatever the equivalent agency is in other countries. I hope someone on the Raven who's an expert on the matter, or who works in a similar agency can weigh in on this. I'm leaning towards not letting the knife go.



Here are some tickets (ferry boat to Corregidor Island and Malinta Tunnel light show) that I'm bundling with his passport:



I also thought it would be a good idea to scan and print out the section of my passport that was stamped and signed by Philippine immigration officers, both when I entered and left the country. I also wrote what would have been Indy's special message to the Filipino people:



Here's TI tipping his hat off to HBRI (HorseBack Riding Indy )



A little pictorial with some of my 4 inch figs: Can you identify all of them?



Oh, did you ever wonder what happened to Indy after he left the SFO International Airport?



He went back to the pub where we met and while waiting for the tank man, he ran into some deranged fan while having his Steel Stout and fish 'n chips. LOOOLL!!!! Or, is that the tank man?

Indy sitting on a fedora



"This has been a presentation to you by MDP78 via the Raven."



Again, I'd like to thank the members of the Raven for making Indy's 3 week detour in the Philippines possible.



CREDITS (in no particular order) :

* NickTurner - for being a great friend
* Antonio, Cynthia & Roan (my brother, sis-in-law and nephew) for the accommodations and hospitality, for being encouraging when it comes to taking Indy pics, and for appearing as extras in a lot of my pics with no extra charge.
* Cynthia's siblings - for being great extras, and for the great pic suggestions.

Have been holding off commenting until this leg of Indy's journey was complete, but gotta say...awesome job MDP78! Really great and creative photos! Makes me wish I could get a do-over, though I really don't have much desire to go back to Afghanistan any time soon.

I could possibly be deploying again this summer, hopefully somewhere else this time, so who knows...

Finn said:

Which begs a question. Why didn't YOU utilize it? It obviously appears you didn't (and even if you did, not nearly as masterfully as MDP).

Click to expand...

PURITY was the reason for not modifying any of my photos (except one*). I wanted all the shots to be 'in-camera' in order to avoid any possible misconceptions. As far as "masterfully" is concerned: Please note that I'm certified by Adobe as a Photoshop professional and have been working with it, daily, since 1992. That's 20 years, dude...

*My thumb was taken out of 1 photo.

Finn said:

Besides, obvious or not, the man was due some compliments for it, weren't he now?

Click to expand...

Of course, MDP deserves compliments for his excellent & enthusiastic job (especially for someone who wasn't a Ravenhead)! Nick made a great pick with MDP78.

MDP78 said:

No worries, Stoo. I have to admit that when I saw the word "faked" I thought I'd to clear a few things up before anyone gets the wrong idea.

Click to expand...

Instead of using the word, "faked", I should have written, "doctored"!

Thanks a lot for posting the photo with the mural. Knowing that you were in Manila, I thought you must have seen something. Much appreciated! Love the extra telephone shot, too! The photo of 'The Tank Man' was also nice to see because it's cool if each host of Mini-Indy includes a picture of themselves. (Hint hint.)

Stoo said:

Please note that I'm certified by Adobe as a Photoshop professional and have been working with it, daily, since 1992. That's 20 years, dude...

Click to expand...

Corporate credentials. Wow. I'm like, so impressed now.


C'mon, let's see the rest of your diplomas. You've got the "master copier" one from Xerox? That one always inspires awe.

<small>DISCLAIMER: This does not mean I don't appreciate the skills of an artisan. It's just that "I've got this paper that says I'm special" is one of the lamest ways to present the fact in the Internet - whether it's true or not.</small>
---


Also...

MDP78 said:

Click to expand...

Dunno why, but I want one.

Finn said:

Corporate credentials. Wow. I'm like, so impressed now.

C'mon, let's see the rest of your diplomas. You've got the "master copier" one from Xerox? That one always inspires awe.

<small>DISCLAIMER: This does not mean I don't appreciate the skills of an artisan. It's just that "I've got this paper that says I'm special" is one of the lamest ways to present the fact in the Internet - whether it's true or not.</small>

Click to expand...

Heh, you're a funny Finn. Papers/Schmapers. Photo-retouching is a part of how I earn my living and I've been doing it in Photoshop for 20 years (even longer, with an airbrush in the pre-digital days). I don't need a website to prove it because my employment (thus far) has spread through connections & word of mouth. Are you asking to see my portfolio?

If you don't believe me, then have fun with your mockery.

Are we ever going to see Mini-Indy up in Finland? It would be interesting to see the him up in that obscure part of the globe and you're the only active candidate to take up the task. What do you say? Yes? No?

Stoo said:

Are we ever going to see Mini-Indy up in Finland? It would be interesting to see the him up in that obscure part of the globe and you're the only active candidate to take up the task. What do you say? Yes? No?

Click to expand...

I'll finance that shipping there. Love to see Indy getting the action from the CME aurouras I'm sure your seeing.

Stoo said:

Are you asking to see my portfolio?

Click to expand...

Nope, I'm asking the complete opposite. If you've got the skillz, just show 'em on an opportune moment.

Stoo said:

Are we ever going to see Mini-Indy up in Finland? It would be interesting to see the him up in that obscure part of the globe and you're the only active candidate to take up the task. What do you say? Yes? No?

Click to expand...

Sure, why not. Toss the little guy my way and I'll give him a tour. Need to work on the timing though. Around this time of year would be good, or alternatively the midsummer. Any other, and you folks will be asking why I've placed that crappy, grainy sepia filter over every image.

Pale Horse said:

I'll finance that shipping there. Love to see Indy getting the action from the CME aurouras I'm sure your seeing.

Click to expand...

Yeah, there's one right... no, wait. Just the headlights from a passing truck.

You wanna see some genuine ABs, you'll also pay for my relocation around 500 miles northwards. This is a surprisingly big country for such a little amount of people.


To avoid any "buyer beware" kind of situations, I'll just present you with a view from my home street, snapped only a few moments ago:



Yeah, maybe there actually are some people who might find that interesting. I don't.

Pale Horse said:

I'll finance that shipping there. Love to see Indy getting the action from the CME aurouras I'm sure your seeing.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm hallucinating! Finance the shipping to Finland at your own risk, Sir Horse, but it might go against the guidelines of this project.

inky_skin said:

(keep it kiddie-friendly please!)

Click to expand...

Is Finland only about computers & porn...OR porn & computers? (I thought rally driving was big up there. It would be cool to see Mini-Indy at a Finnish rally.)

P.S. Just saw Finn's post. He should totally request to take the figure on tour! Challenge accepted! Gotta love it.

Finn said:

Nope, I'm asking the complete opposite. If you've got the skillz, just show 'em on an opportune moment.

Click to expand...

Already done that elsewhere, slowpoke...

Finn said:

To avoid any "buyer beware" kind of situations, I'll just present you with a view from my home street, snapped only a few moments ago:

Click to expand...

Pretty amazing pic actually! Of course, I don't have to FEEL it from here

(And to think I moved from the UK 'cos it was too cold.... SHEESH! )