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Yesterday, a friend of ours stopped by to show off a couple of her new kittens. Of course I grabbed the camera and started firing away! It's dangerous holding them because you begin to rationalize... "You know, we could travel around with a cat. Yeah, they basically take care of themselves!". Reality sets in as soon they are out of sight... "How would a cat do in the desert heat, living in a van and/or a tent? We'd have to keep the litter box at the foot of our bed". Okay, that settles it... NO pets! "...but I want one..."  Edwige holds two, thirteen day old kittens.  "meeow" (I'm hungry, where's mom!) - Kurt
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All summer long, Kurt has been seriously working on developing his new character: Agent 187. Who is Agent 187? Kurt doesn't even know, the guy kind of dropped out of nowhere. We know this much about him: he is a good guy (whatever that means) who puts his life on the line to fight injustice. Kurt is currently working on making figures for this series and we're looking for missions to send Agent 187 on.  Agent 187 taking some down time before his next mission.  Un Petit Monde turned 5 this month! Kurt and I were reminiscing about how the project started one late afternoon in June 2010. For those of you who never heard the beginnings of Un Petit Monde...I'll let Kurt tell the story: "Edwige was out working in the garden one evening and I was not too far from her photographing macros of insects and plants. She dug up a June bug and as I was photographing it she suggested I get one of the HO scale figures I had as a child and place it next to the June bug to photograph it. The rest is history."  The first photograph that started our Un Petit Monde project in June 2010 Since the inception of the project, Kurt has grown both his technique and style but has stayed true to his original vision. "I guess coming from a background of editorial and landscape photography I still have the drive to document things in their natural environment but with a whimsical touch. We can take ourselves a little too serious at times and photographing miniatures in the natural world is a great way for me to express myself artistically."
To commemorate the event, Kurt pulled out of the Un Petit Monde vault some of his earlier work and made the prints available for purchase in our online store until the end of June. Click here.  Towards the end of 2014, Kurt went back to work on the Disney Infinity Project and produced a new Christmas Series. The release of our Disney Infinity Christmas Series is a bit of an anticlimax for us, now that we are in the 80°s and Christmas is long gone NONETHELESS, we hear that some parts of the world currently get snow (!) so we are pleased to unveil the latest Disney Infinity Christmas Series including: Anna & Elsa, Stitch, Mickey & Donald, Tinker Bell and Hiro & Baymax. This Christmas series was a challenge as the majority of the photos were shot prior to Thanksgiving, when there was no snow and no decorations up yet. But, amidst a brown Minnesota we found white, powdery snow in Taylors Falls and Kurt photographed Anna & Elsa making Olaf the snowman. In the historic town of Stillwater we came across a window display with the ideal Christmas setting for Stitch to be eating his mincemeat pie. Later in the season, we stopped in the quaint little town of Williams in Arizona on the night of their Christmas parade and found the neatest Christmas tree we'd ever seen for Tinker Bell to perch on. As usual, Kurt added his personal touch to the Disney Infinity character by painstakingly painting and building props, it turned out to be a lot of fun! Thank you to Wild Mountain in Taylors Falls, Minnesota for allowing us to photograph Anna and Elsa on their slopes, thank you to Käthe Wohlfahrt in Stillwater, Minnesota for giving Stitch a perfect Christmas setting, thank you to Edinburgh USA Golf Course in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and last but not least Copper Canyon Trading in Williams, Arizona for giving us access to the prettiest Christmas tree on Main Street to photograph Tinker Bell. We could not have done it without your gracious help and generosity!  Pictured (L to R): Hiro, Baymax, Donald, Anna, Stitch, Elsa, Mickey, Tinker Bell (photo: Edwige) 
Kurt and I are happy to announce that our new Un Petit Monde downloadable wallpapers are available for purchase in our Etsy Store! For now, the digital images are available for iPhones only and are made to fit the screen size of the iPhone 4(s) and 5(s). We started the collection with a few images revolving around the themes of travel and adventure and plan to add more in the future. The digital files are available for $1.99 on Etsy here: Digital Wallpapers   Edwige and I are excited to announce that we have teamed up with the creative minds at MediaMonks to create a watch face for Android Wear™
For some time we've been thinking of a way to introduce our photography in a digital format adding to the more traditional medium of the prints, postcards and books. The digital watch face is a perfect medium to share our joy of travelling and adventures with a broader audience. For this app I shot extra frames which MediaMonks has developed into stop motion animations. These animations will play as you wake your watch from its ambient state. The app will also feature hand drawn style icons to display the time and date. Edwige and I specifically chose White Sands National Monument in New Mexico as the location for the scenes. The user gets to experience a day on the dunes with the changes of light while following the adventures of the miniatures through static photographs and stop motion animations. The environment in which we photographed the scenes was at times harsh and unpredictable. But after seeing the final product produced by MediaMonks, all of the hard work has paid off! Our app titled "MiniAdventure" is available in the Google Play store today. Kurt We've had a very eventful past week. Our van died a few days before we were to make our way to Colorado and the Southwest for a couple projects with nearing deadlines. For one of the projects we needed snow, lots of it and a Christmas spirit. Being stuck in Minnesota in early November, the task seemed arduous, almost impossible. Thankfully our prayers were answered when 6 inches of fresh snow fell on Minnesota last Monday. I have to hand it to Kurt for remaining creative in the mist of chaos. One project down, on to the next one!  Kurt walks through the snow at the location of one of the Christmas scenes  We had a very interesting side project this past Spring/Summer. Kurt applied his photography technique and style to the Disney Infinity figurines. Disney Infinity is a video game that features Disney, Pixar and Marvel characters. After getting Disney's blessing and a box full of figurines including some that haven't been released, Kurt went to work immediately, cutting them from their base and building props. Apology to collectors, Baymax had to get a new foot: Kurt had difficulties getting him off his base and accidentally cut it off! As props go, Buzz Lightyear got himself a space rocket, Mickey is working his magic broom, Wreck-It ralph is pulling the wires at a video arcade, Maleficient is appearing out of a green flame and Mr. Incredible got himself a bucket and cloth and is ready to do some clean up! The result of this project is a series of images featuring Disney Infinity characters shot on location in the real world environment. The scenes were photographed indoor and outdoor in Gooseberry Falls State Park, Two Harbors, Duluth, Minneapolis, St Paul and New York City. Some of the shots were done with the gracious approval from business owners, THANK YOU to Adventure Zone, Amazing Grace Bakery & Cafe and Toys for Keep in Duluth, HiFi Hair & Record, Magers & Quinn Booksellers and The Foundry Home Goods in Minneapolis, Lil'Dog Car and Pet Wash in Two Harbors and Frames Bowling Lounge in New York City. We picked those businesses because they look neat and the people there are nice.  Team group shot: Davy Jones, Holley Shiftwell, Elsa, Mater, Agent P, Woody, Lightning McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey, M. Incredible, Phineas, Maleficient, Merida, Wreck-It Ralph, Lone Ranger, Tonto, Rapunzel, Aladdin, Baymax, Francesco, Barbossa, Jack Sparrow  Kurt is currently photographing for a project involving miniature figures of a slightly larger scale. Some of the characters require very specific elements in the background. For one of the scenes, he needed a green fire. Kurt found out that Boric Acid and Methanol mixed together and ignited would give out a green flame. The next step was to figure out a way to control the flame so it would burn tall and look natural. Kurt's trick was to mold a piece of foil paper into a thin sleeve with edges so the mixture would not spill yet low profile enough so it couldn't be noticed in the final shot.  Green flame for one of the scenes: mixture of Boric Acid and Methanol   Book display at Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis  Wild Rumpus  Maria, the young model for the book, is signing copies at the launch party  Edwige, Kurt and Kelly at the Bookcase of Wayzata |
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