Oscar Night!

Hosted an Oscar party and played a one-man paparazzi. More after the jump…


A few years ago I thought it would be funny to have an Oscar party and give out, you know, real Oscars. Working, as I do, with Theatre people; I asked a prop-designer how one goes about securing such things as Oscar statues. After some less than satisfying Google searches he shrugged. “Well” he said, “I could make you one”.

More Google searching led to medium res photos of various celebrities holding their statues. Based purely on eye-balling, my friend managed to reverse-engineer the size & dimensions of Oscar; and then hand-build a 3D model in AutoCad. That model was then hacked apart by another program and fed into a Computer-Controlled router which dutifully carved full statues out of MDF. A minor math error meant that the statues were a little, shall we say, oversized; but that just added to the novelty.

I tell you that story only as a cautionary tale. This is the slippery-slope that is my constant home.

At any rate: Now, it’s a thing. My friends all come; everyone brings a food-item specifically named with a current Oscar pun. This year’s best was a tie between “The Sausage Network” and "Chicken a la the King's Speech".

Chicken a la the King's Speech

The Sausage Network

Also, the ladies dress up. Donno why; it’s a lady thing I guess. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It means that some segment of the night is devoted to photos.

I had my white-seamless set up (sure, for photo reasons; but mostly to hide all the clutter that typically inhabits my apartment and that was, for one night only, shoved hastily in the corner). AB1600 up on a stand, with an SB800 off to the side for fill/rim. I had my Wescott Apollo 25” softbox out, as well as the Paul C. Buff grid-spots.

What was “fun” was taking a series of pictures with the softbox, then switching to the grids, then back again. Must have done that two dozen times or more during the evening. Not a bad exercise, actually. It’s always a good thing to train that sort of stuff into your muscle memory; one less thing to worry about on an actual shoot.

Lexi. Right on top of the Wescott. I mean, that thing is *just* out of the frame.

John, being the villian in some hitherto unknown Indiana Jones movie. Also, 10 degree grid.

Robin & Collin. Again, inches from the Wescott.

Hey, you know what would be fun? Going back to grids. Also, Liz is an Oscar-winning Pirate.

Mike - the Ayn Rand version.

Ok, back to the softbox. I'm too tired to switch back to color.

Fun night. Tasty food and good company.

End of line.