I’m not planning any exotic trips this year so as a summer project I embarked on what I refer to as The Vespa Series. This will be an evolved use of forced perspective photography (see https://jimchungblog.com/2021/07/02/pandemic-motorsports/) to manifest a convincing illusion but this time with large 1:6 scaled human and animal figures standing in for the real thing. This is also referred to as Barbie Doll scale. I also wanted to showcase my city of Toronto, which is often used in film making as a stand in for Manhattan but it’s actually much more versatile. All images were taken with the Olympus OM-1 and Leica 9mm f/1.7 lens.
The model is highly poseable and with convincing hidden joints. Although the Vespa model is highly detailed owing to its large scale, it required additional painting in silver chrome metallic to highlight the metal parts that are part of this iconic scooter, especially the radial divisions on the front horn and the many metal fasteners/nuts. Shot on the northern shore of Lake Simcoe, Trumpeter Swans decided to visit and enhance the supernatural wonder of the location. If you want to see the image at maximum size, zoom your browser view until the image occupies the entire width of the screen and the captions appear below it.Our model is seated outside of Balzac’s coffee house, located in the Distillery District. This massive complex of buildings and cobblestoned roadways was once the largest distiller of hard liquor in Canada dating from the 1860s. It was the filming site of the movie version of the Broadway musical CHICAGO. An image of the roadway was taken and printed at the right scale for the Vespa to perch upon and then blended into the real roadway.This image was created in homage to the famous Japanese Manga AKIRA that deals with a post apocalyptic Tokyo city. Our model is astride Akira’s famous futuristic motorcycle in Toronto’s Dundas Square in the very early hours of the morning where only the transients and homeless occupy the area.Our Akira model had her hair tamed and braided into a professional bun before playing her cello in front of Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto’s premier symphonic performance venue and whose stunning architecture has been used in many movies, most recently as the VOUGHT HQ in the THE BOYS.Our original model finds herself fleeing the disturbing statue of the Hindu monkey God Hanuman, dressed in the same style of dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch. In Canada, the worship of religion is almost never discussed in conversation and is considered a private matter of nobody else’s concern.The new VW Beetle is found with our model and her Great Dane outside of Casa Loma, the stunning former private residence of a financier who spent $5 million in 1911 to build his own personal castle. This was also Dr. Xavier’s residence and school for young mutants in the first X-Men movie.Life clearly has been good to our model who now drives a Porsche 996 Turbo. Large scale car models tend to be very expensive, but these models were inexpensive nonworking RC (radio controlled) toys.Finally, we find our model with her other dog, a Belgian Mallinois, on the beach at Scarborough Bluffs, also the site of a famous scene in the Daniel Radcliffe movie The F Word. I feel this might be the most convincing illusion due to finally achieving a natural appearing pose. The human eye and visual cortex is particularly adept at identifying when things somehow don’t look right.
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Addendum Nov 20/24:
A homage to Sucker Punch and Tintin, this also highlights a typical autumn day in the city’s forests. The Pursuit.
I have degrees in Biochemistry and Dentistry and practice clinically 2 days a week. The rest of the week I devote to photography and bringing you the very best writing in this blog.
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