PrettyTiny Film Company Pic-A-Week, **2025** (#14, Apr. 3)

[davidd]

Hey! Cool find... and ten bucks less than eected! Score!

I dig that hair style and the face design!

[Alliecat]

I am really behind in photographing noodles.
… OK, I had to leave that because that is what my phone dictation thought I said
I didn’t think I was that inarticulate.
I am behind in photographing NEW DOLLS. I think I still have some of Magenta to sort, plus Daisy, plus Noelle… Now here’s Kit. I still have to try to see if I can get the upper part of her elbow joints to move. They look like they are supposed to. Quickie snapshot time. Here she is with Dallas – I know, not very original, and he actually came from the Fort Worth zoo, but I wasn’t going to call him “Forty” or “Worthy”
The zoo is pretty well set up to catch you with cute plushies just after you have seen the corresponding animals. The tigers were absolutely spectacular. Hence the impulse purchase. We won’t talk about how much he cost with the exchange rate

[davidd]

Dallas is not worthy? Awwww! He looks like a fine fellow to me, and he seems to have attracted a cute friend... whom I'm sure he'll be taking out to lunch very soon.

Yes, more noodles! We need more noodles!

[fishy]

Oh he's so soft-looking.

[Alliecat]

Dallas is not worthy? Awwww!

Of course he is.  It's not the most exciting name though, is it?

Oh he's so soft-looking.

He really is!  They did a pretty good job capturing the wonderfulness of actual tiger fur.  He has a little beanbag in his bottom too.


One of the photos of Kit was supposed to be my pic-a-week, but, in another example of my noise-disrupted inability to focus on anydamnthing, I posted them all on the general PTFCo pix thread.  So I had to take another one.  Returning from TX again just reinforced so much more how much I effing hate this climate, and how desperately I want to not be here.  It snowed, AGAIN, and I have sheets of ice around the house that make going out very unappealing.


Darla & Janice, sort of dressed for the cold.

[davidd]

Cute pic. Really good eosure, especially since they are pale dolls at night!

The icicles look... well, they make the scene look cold and dangerous. Icicles usually mean a frozen layer on porches or steps underneath any snow that might be there.

Does Canada have any territories in tropical climates?

(That's a good question; I'll look that up right now!)

"Canada has three territories: Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon."

So... uhmmm... not tropical.

[Alliecat]

Cute pic. Really good ex posure, especially since they are pale dolls at night!

Does Canada have any territories in tropical climates?

It's called "flash"   
But yeah, it did do pretty well with the contrast.

LOL srsly?  You think I'd be here if we did??


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It was a horrible day, but what was left of it was somewhat salvaged by the lunar eclipse. Did my best to enjoy it despite the strip-mall-worthy light pollution next door.  Everything else in my surroundings is crap, but "you can't take the sky from me."

[davidd]

I was just looking at, and marveling over, your eclipse photo on Flickr.

Did you use light painting to achieve this remarkable photo? I mean... you got THE MOOOOON in focus with the red color while getting the dollies in focus and properly illuminated at night!

This will be the most amazing doll photo I will see all year, I have no doubt!

I know how challenging it is to achieve something like this. I'm genuinely impressed. More like in awe.

Of course the sky was completely overcast here, and foggy, and snowing the night of the eclipse. Sixty percent lower than normal winter precipitation, but it was snowing on eclipse night.

The next morning was cloudless and sunny.

But you were outside (the temp must have been so cold) with your 'scope and your camera and your little friends and look what you accomplished! Amazing!

Congratulations on achieving an epic photo.

(And yeah, they will try to take away the sky with their stupid spotlights. I don't understand people who move to "dark sky country" and then try to light things up like round-the-clock daylight.)

[Alliecat]

Aww, thank you   I'm glad you like it.  I wasn't that enthused about the photo to begin with, I guess mainly because my whole enjoyment of the eclipse was a bit of a struggle against the looming presence of the Neighbours From Hell with their light pollution (all their lights are on literally around the clock), and I spent the whole time thinking about, what if I lived somewhere else and could fully enjoy this   So I didn't get very ambitious with the photo, like doing anything to make the moon bigger and in focus and then zooming back on the dolls.  That wouldn't likely work anymore anyway, because the last time I did something like that with the Milky Way, it was dark in the lot next door.
I do love light painting because it gives me back some of the organic participation in picture-taking which I had with film and which was lost with all the digital bells & whistles.
It was around zero I guess, maybe 1 or 2?  I had several layers plus Mom's winter coat which is longer & warmer than mine.  So it wasn't bad -- just hard to move!   And the secret-ingredient-hot-chocolate to finish off warmed me up. 
The moon was a little red but appears much more so in the photo.
There was actual frost on the scope by the end. 
Aww, bummer that you missed it.  I feel like every significant astonomical event here gets clouded out, but I guess it was someone else's turn.  Spring here is not great weather.  Hence going all the way to Texas and HOW can that be almost a YEAR ago??!?!?! 
I wonder what crummy weather we'll get on the 29th.  We are on the centerline for that one and I've found a spot that is RIGHT EXACTLY on it, just for fun.
Anyway, thank you for helping me appreciate my own photo more 

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Dang it, I haven't got the rest of the girls' Texas trip pix sorted and posted, and now we have some more.  I was going to post them this week & even brought the cord to download them off the cameras, but.... not so far.  They will also be belated, sigh.
I accepted an invitation for a few days' housesit on the mainland, mostly just for a chance to Not Be At My House.  Got a chance to practice my French, with people and cat.  It's easier talking to the cat because I'm less conscious of my accent & grammar   


Here's our new lil buddy Gaston.  He's very mellow, & hasn't really demonstrated the annoying behaviours his parents said he might.

[davidd]

The PTFCo crew appear to be sufficiently fluent. Then again, nap time is a universal language!

House-sitting in a French-speaking province? How far did you have to go?

OH! Are you actually in the path of totality for the solar eclipse? Fingers XX'd for clear weather for you! That's exciting! Do you have a back-up plan if the local weather looks iffy?

[Alliecat]

. Then again, nap time is a universal language!

House-sitting in a French-speaking province? How far did you have to go?

Haha, yes, I guess it is.
Just about 2 1/2 hours' drive up the bay.  Parts of NB are quite francophone.

Missed the week's end again.  >sigh<
The eclipse was a complete bust, with the only little patch of clear sky too far north for the rising sun.  No, I didn't plan to go elsewhere.  Maximum eclipse, 83%, (not totality) was 3 or 4 minutes after sunrise.  I just wasn't up to planning a major ex.pedition for it.
The day went downhill after that.  I have GOT to find a new home 


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Anyway, I took some pictures of Kit in a quick foray into the yard yesterday.  I'm behind in giving the new girls photoshoots.  She's a cool model and of course wonderfully poseable with that MTM body.

[davidd]

Cool hairstyle, and I love the jacket!

Bummer about the eclipse, but this time of year is pretty iffy everywhere in the northern hemisphere.

[Alliecat]

Bummer about the eclipse, but this time of year is pretty iffy everywhere in the northern hemisphere.

Yup.  That was why I decided to go to Texas for the solar one.  (HOW can that be a YEAR ago????  )  It actually snowstormed on about the same date last year, that it did this year, just a few days before the eclipse.  Even if it had cleared, which it uncharacteristically did, I didn't fancy sitting in a snowbank for several hours

Kit's hair has been better than I hoped given a review or 2 I'd seen that said it was messy.  It does need to be combed into place often.  I found 2 of those nifty jackets somewhere on eBay a while back.  I really like them too.



Daisy Madison, who was in the year's first pic, finally gets a photoshoot with the very few crocuses that optimistically think it's spring.

[davidd]

Looks pretty spring-like to me! Colorful flowers everywhere... there!

(Snow here today.)