These are just some really fun porcelain figurines that which became very popular starting in the early '50s through the 60s. Similar pieces are still produced today, however the techniques and materials are very different. I also haven't found any that were made in Japan (MIJ is the common abbreviation/acronym) after about ca. 1973. Around that time a lot of manufacturing of these sorts of things began moving to other parts of Asia. No matter what your reason for collecting these I find, even as a guy, you can't help but smile at the whimsical look of them. Look at the elaborate rhinestones, the fancy collars, even the horn-rimmed rhinestone glasses. So sure they are a bit silly but can make a person feel a but like a kid again. Now about the shot, it was actually just some lighting practice. I lighted the background, behind the figurines and the front/top/side all separately. I did not quite get the effect I was after but I still like the result for the most part. I did get a good 2-stop over exposure on most of the background which was a goal. What went wrong was I did not have enough working room to prevent any bleed over (or wrap around) from the light reflected from the background. If I had another 18" or so that would have gone away. On the black poodles I wasn't really paying attention and got too many white reflections so i could have spent more time setting up a few small cards to control those reflections. But again I don't think it's too mad of a miss. Were doing this for another purpose I would have spent that extra 20-mins setting it up and experimenting a leetle more. Same goes for the hot spots on the faces of a couple of the pink critters. I did like the way the shadows worked on the very white (about the same color/shade as the background which is very white as well) long-necked figurine. Other than some of that bleed around at the very edges of the head I was pleasantly surprised that it did not make taking the shot more tedious. I would have liked to shoot this on a transparent sheet of Plexiglas to try for a shadowless look but ya have to work with the too;=ls at hand...and in this case no way I was going to spend $200 for a 4'x8' sheet of clear Lexan/Perspex/Plexiglas given I won't be using it often and these days space is tight too. Don't be reluctant to shoot an under lighted shot using plastic even if it is somewhat scratched as the lighting will completely make them as well as the sheet itself disappear into that blown out background. I used my current favorite lens for tabletop and product shooting on an APS-C body, my Pentax 35ltd mounted on my old reliable Pentax K20D. My flashes were an OLLLLD Vivitar 285 to blast out the background, and three el cheapo Yongnuo YN460 full manual flashes. I used two Lumiquest softboxes, a Softbox III as well as the much larger LTp Softbox. My lighting was triggered using some inexpensive RF triggers. So nothing fancy here. Obviously all the lighting was off-camera. OK, that was way too much babbling for an trivial shot...but you never know when a post could be your last. haha...

Where to start ? From the subject outward I guess :) The plastic glasses are placed on a sheet of clear acrylic which is painted black on the underside. Behind this is a sheet of purple card used as the backdrop and also providing most of the colour in the shot. To the sides a pair of screens holding sheets of pink paper, through which a pair of Neewer SF-01 mini slave flashes are fired. Just to the rear of the base, is another Neewer SF-01 pointing back at the backdrop, while mounted above is a Yongnuo YN460 set at 1/2 power lighting most of the background. The 2 flashes to the sides are mounted on Blazzeo SLT-4 radio triggers, while the 2 background flashes are triggered by their built in optical sensors. I hope all that lot makes some sense :) The final image can be seen below.