Dio - “Staghound Running Down Its Quarry” Normandy, 1944
This is my Staghound from last year, in various spots of my yard. It is the first main photoshoot after the devastation of Hurricane Maria in September 20. About a dozen of the small trees were downed by the nearly Cat5 winds. The following day, with the ground still saturated, I propped them up with heavy rope and metal stakes. Added dirt to fill in the voids and hoped for the best. Last Friday, January 5, I unstrapped all the trees. So far they look ok. Over those three months I spent countless hours working the yard. Added more features, including a new road and extended and raised the plywood background pieces in the fences. Before the plywood would go up 4 feet, not the pieces are placed on edge, making them 8 feet high. Added an additional 12 pieces of 4x8 plywood to cover most of the viewable fence area. It makes it much easier to have flexibility in taking images from different angles. Still the best light is with the sun is covered by clouds, as strong light and shadows on the backdrop, does not look good.
Having all the yard ready, makes it simple to move the vehicle around and makes the images have for the most part, a natural backdrop.
In one of the scenes, the Staghound’s commander is talking with some local French civilians. It is the first time I have used civilians in my photoshoots, and I like the results. These two figures are dressed in BGT civilian pieces. The bearded civilian is a mountain on a man, and the HS is also huge, not sure from what figure, but I believe it is from a super hero series. The old short bald man has a Ben Kingsley HS.
Here some initial shots in the old covered road, now extended all the way to the old initial main dirt road.
Here you can see the extension to the old main dirt road I put in late last summer.
Commander talking with some local Frenchmen
Here is the new road, still working on it and did not get the best light for all the variations at the spot…
