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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/50 sec, f/9, ISO 6400 — full exif
The Attack
photo by Anthony

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/125 sec, f/9, ISO 6400 — full exif
Counter Attack
photo by Anthony

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1400 — full exif
Replete With Gas Mask
photo by Anthony

Anthony still really enjoys his LEGOs, making “mockups” like the Clones vs. Droids Battle I posted last year. It's been fun to see his play progress from simple add-ons to toys when he was three years old, to mimicking airport security after some flights when he was four, to car repair and advanced flight design and intergalactic speeders to a full cityscape to complex combinations of Lord knows what.

Now at nine years old, he still enjoys his LEGO and saves almost all his allowance for it.

A month or so ago he was very happy to find Swedish retailer Warehouse19. They sell small LEGO sets, as well as custom pieces not made by LEGO but designed to fit into the Legoverse. They have all kinds of hats, helmets, guns, armor... all stuff to whet a 9-year-old boy's imagination.

Anthony ordered three tough-looking minifigures and enough kit to deck them out in an appropriately “cool” style, as well as a bazillion flowers and other plant pieces. He had a specific mockup in his mind that he intended to make for them, involving the overgrown grounds of an abandoned castle. (Because it's abandoned and overgrown, he needed a lot of plants to sprinkle around, so a large portion of his allowance went toward that.)

He was so excited about it that he built most of the mockup just after we ordered, so all that remained was to insert everything from the order once it arrived. However, when it came less than a week later, Anthony was crushed because I had mistakenly forgotten to order a light-colored helmet, and that one missing piece caused everything to grind to a halt. (His imagination was pretty well fixed on what he wanted, so the missing piece was a show stopper.)

There was another problem with the order... Warehouse19 had sent too many of the flowers. But since I was going to place another order for the helmet, I thought I'd just pay for the flowers rather than go to the hassle of returning them, so I wrote Warehouse19 a note about the helmet (please send) and flowers (I'll pay; just send the five needed stems) and immediately got a reply that they'd be happy to just send it all For free.

And they did.

They merely asked that we tell our friends about them... good word of mouth, you know... so I let them known that I'd certainly be doing a blog post about it because I like to capture Anthony's creativity.

However, I'm still my lazy self, so it took a month before getting around to taking the pictures. I suppose it's a testament to Anthony's happiness with the result that the mockup has lasted that long. I'm prompted to make this post now because he's ready to place another order with Warehouse19, and I feel we should give this public thanks for their kindness before we move on to another order.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/80 sec, f/9, ISO 6400 — full exif
Heavy Armor
photo by Anthony

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/160 sec, f/9, ISO 6400 — full exif
Overgrown Steps to the Abandoned Castle
( you should see the castle in your imagination )
photo by Anthony

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/160 sec, f/9, ISO 6400 — full exif
Prior Tenant?
photo by Anthony

I had taken a bunch of photos for this post, but then Anthony wanted to as well, and his were just great, so I used them instead. Of mine, I'll just show two wide views....

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2000 — full exif
Bird's-Eye View
I really should have used a polarizing filter

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — full exif