Combining Hobbies -- Collecting and Miniature Photography

John Wayne Jigsaw Puzzle

Collecting Our Favorite Things

Do you have a hobby or a passion for collecting your favorite things? Maybe you like to read or watch old movies and have amassed your own library. My wife has a huge collection of DVDs that includes entire sets of movies from actors like John Wayne. My older brother collects baseball memorabilia and devotes an entire room of his house to display it.

Me

I seem to have acquired a significant collection of MLB bobbleheads; I even have my own personal mini-me (too narcissistic?) that my family gifted me one Christmas. I also have a miniature bobblehead of oil painting instructor, Bob Ross. My office also houses my baseball (et.al.) cap collection and lots of art supplies and art textbooks for teaching my various art lessons.

Does anyone remember the 2018 film, Welcome to Marwen, starring Steve Carell, about a man who becomes a heroic World War II fighter pilot and meticulously creates and photographs a Belgian town using posed realistic dolls and other miniatures? A rather creepy love story. Anyway...

Photography

Recently, a 12-yr-old autistic boy from Woodinville, WA was featured on KOMO’s Eric’s Heroes. His name is Anthony Ryan Schmidt and he collects all kinds of model cars. He has been photographing them from his iPhone and placing them outside making them appear to be full-scale. 

Small Cars, Big Inspiration

He’s even published a coffee table book and a 2021 Calendar of his amazing images. He is both an artist and a savant when it comes to miniature photography & automotive knowledge.

He's been consulted by forensic teams and successfully helped them solve unsolved crimes. Amazing!

I've managed to save my childhood collection of Matchbox cars in the original 1968 case. I was keeping them in the event I ever had grandchildren. So far, that hasn't happened, and I'm not sure they'd be worth anything much if I were to sell them now. So they sit gathering dust in a closet. Their scale would be too small to photograph!

One of my work colleagues likes to travel the world and photograph spectacular scenery. This is a long exposure landscape photo from Iceland taken by my friend, Jennifer.

Her husband, Ronnie poses his GI Joe figures and other miniatures on-location where he and Jennifer vacation.

Steel Brigade

Arctic Experts

In his world, rocks become mountains and puddles become lakes. He's found a way to creatively combine his collecting, travel, and photography into a leisure pastime he and his wife can enjoy together. Check out his Instagram page @mephistojoe9.

The Future Duke of Wellington
(1808), Richard Cosway

Historically, particularly in the Renaissance (16th and 17th Century), portrait artists painted miniature likenesses on materials such as ivory for jewelry. So, rather than turning collections into photographic art, these artists created wearable (and collectible) art from their painted portraits. They were primarily English artists such as Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619), Isaac Oliver (1565-1617), John Smart (1741-1811), and Richard Cosway (1742-1821). Cosway's wife, Maria was also an Italian-born painter and close friend of Thomas Jefferson.

Earlier this year, the Beinart Gallery in Melbourne, Australia hosted an exhibit dedicated to the tiny works of 30 artists from around the world. Check out this Miniature Art Show.

Photo from Gallery 1957, Joana Choumali

Although this is not an example of miniature art, I have to show the work of Joana Choumali, a visual artist/photographer based in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. She embroiders directly on top of her photographs using brightly colored thread. I've never seen such imaginative, creative use of multi-media. Beautiful! I guess you could say that this is like painting with thread or creating a tapestry from a photograph. It's maybe a stretch for this topic, but embroidery can be considered a hobby, and this stitchery is definitely tedious and on a small, delicate scale.