Inspiration by way of fake cameras

Yesterday Kimberly and I stumbled upon a video describing the "fake cameras" used by Pixar in the latest Toy Story movie.  We were happily surfing though YouTube watching videos of painting restoration and fine art painting processes, when this little gem popped up.  It was truly fascinating - so much so that we wanted to share it with you.

In this video, the author is describing how a split diopter shot.  While the video does describe that type of shot, I'll go ahead an mention that a.) it isn't something we do in still photography, b.) have two different planes of focus is pretty neat, and c/) we didn't notice the shot when we watched Toy Story 4 either, so you aren't alone.

Why share this here?  Because folks as us all the time about our sources of inspiration.  And we can share with you lots on this subject, but we can say one thing about all others - our inspiration for our work, professional and personal, rarely comes from other photographers.  Not that they aren't awesome - many are! - but rather, inspiration for us comes in all sorts of places.  

From meandering through old New England antique shops, to visiting The Museum of Fine Arts (the guards know us by name, I swear!), painting our own canvas backgrounds, or - yes - going on a mid-day movie date to see Toy Story 4, for us inspiration comes in many forms.