Behind Quest - Fav Photos 2026

Behind the Scenes of the Quest

The Quest was a story I first came up with in 2012 to take advantage of a cross-country trip to the Pacific. I only had the five main characters at the time, and very few props. Then years later I decided to take additional photos to complete the story on another trip out west to the Pacific in 2024. That time I decided to add servants, horses, tents, and lots of props. Most of the interior scenes to complete the story were taken that summer, with more on location scenes photographed on another trip in the fall of 2024. My goal was to turn the story into a book, but since many of the interior scenes from 2024 were taken hand-held with my camera set on Auto, the images were not sharp enough for print, so the Wedding and Coronation scenes were totally re-shot in January 2026.
These are some of the behind the scenes shots of the various scenes.

the Introduction

Scenes posted back in 2024, and again in 2026 as part of the recap to the story.
The scene of Kyle, Aeran and Maya leaving. It was taken back in 2012 at Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, on the windy hillside overlooking Upper Waterton Lake....

and the Prince of Wales Hotel, which I thought would work as Aeran's castle...

In 2024 I decided the group needed servants to accompany them and take along all the supplies for a lengthy journey. so I took photos of Narin and Adrian with their horses, on a picnic table with Lower Waterton Lake in the background. It was extremely windy, so Jan had to support the doll's stands to prevent them from being blown over....

I wanted new travel scenes with the entire group in 2024, so set the dolls and horses up on the shore of Bow Lake, up the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park...

Back in 2012 I didn't have horses or tents, so in 2024 I wanted to take scenes with everyone in camp. This scene was set up on the top of the hill in the group camp site in the campground in Uclulet, on Vancouver Island....

Hilda Ridge

Traveling up the Icefields Parkway, in Banff, in 2024, I was constantly on the look out for places to photograph my dolls, and the pull-off at Hilda Ridge was perfect - and there was no one else there. It was cold, and snowing a bit, and very windy, so I positioned the horses facing into the wind...

I went to lay down on the tarp on the gravel, and Jan supported the dolls in the wind, until I was ready to take the photos....

Pukaskwa

On our way back home in 2024 from our cross-country trip, we stopped in at Pukaskwa National Park along the north shore of Lake Superior. I had wanted to take more camp photo, and it's always a lot easier on a picnic table, so we booked a campsite. Problem was it was black-fly season, and I didn't feel like being eaten alive. But the next morning, I REALLY wanted to take some photo, so I decided to brave the bugs, slathered myself in bug repellent, and set up a camp scene on the picnic table. *Note - all the dolls are stored in individual labelled boxes, so we know who's in which box when we go to get them down out of the overhead storage compartments in the RV.

Like everywhere else, it was windy, so the tent had to be supported by cans from the pantry....

I had covered the table with the tarp, then spread gravel, moss and twigs, but a picnic table isn't very big and it's almost impossible to not have the edges show up in photos, so it takes some post production to remove the table edges. I do have a fake fire which I take along and put into the scene, but it's not the most realistic thing ever....

So I took photos of the fire-pit at our son's lake house that summer

Which I could then superimpose parts of onto the fake fire....

Dead Bear

In the fall of 2024 I took all the dolls with us again on another trip. This time I wanted to take more scenes featuring Byuri, and I had a few ideas. I'd taken the photo of Aeran holding back Maya and Byuri in 2013 in Kilarney Provincial Park....

And I'd taken lots of photos of bears on our trip out west back in 2012, and chose this one, taken in Jasper National Park...

I wanted to add to the story, so I set up the scene involving the bear in Sinclair Cove in Lake Superior Provincial Park. I posed everyone at the edge of the beach in the driftwood in front of the trees, and sat down to take the photos....

Then after I was done taking the photos for the story, I took one of Byuri and the bear as a disclaimer to prove no animals had actually been harmed

Wolf Encounter

Another scene for the story taken in the fall of 2024, at our campsite in the Rabbit Blanket campground in Lake Superior Provincial Park. I covered the picnic table with the tarp, set up the tents, and spread fallen leaves everywhere....

Then took the photos for the story,

later superimposing real flames over the 'fire' in every photo....

Taking a Break

The scene of Maya, Aeran, and Byuri taking a lunch break, was taken in 2024 in the campground in Uclulet on Vancouver Island. We needed to do laundry, so were parked opposite the laundromat, and while the laundry was going, I set up the dolls on the edge of the clearing beside the small parking lot. After I sat down on the ground to take the photos, Jan changed some poses for me....

Mottled shade is one of the very worst things for doll photos, so then Jan cast some shade on the dolls for me...

Shell Canyon

Back in 2012 when I first started taking photos for the Quest, we started our trip by heading west through the USA. I was constantly on the lookout for places to photograph the dolls for the story. We were heading down out of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. We stopped at a lookout in Shell Canyon where I stood Aeran on top of one of the railing posts....

Then took close-ups at her eye level, making sure the hairpin road heading down into the canyon didn't show....

the Icefields Centre

A few weeks later we were in Alberta, exploring along the Icefields Parkway in Jasper. it was a beautiful morning and we stopped at a pull-off just north of the Icefields Centre. I used my wire poke-in-the-ground stands to support the dolls....

...and lay down to take the photos....

We had spent the night in the Icefields Centre parking lot (for a fee). In those days there would only be a handful of RVs there overnight. There were still snow piles along the edges of the parking lot from the storm the previous week, and there were large puddles from the melting snow. I wanted to capture the dolls travelling along the snow ridge with their reflections in the puddles if possible. It meant having to lay down on the asphalt, and so as not to draw attention to myself, I asked Jan to move the RV so it would hide me laying on the ground. Then I positioned the dolls on their wire stands on the snow bank, and lay down to take the photos....

I had to take the photos with the camera right close to the ground in order to capture the doll's reflections....

...and direct Jan to make any adjustments....

Sinclair Cove

On the way home along the Trans-Canada Hwy through Lake Superior Provincial Park back in 2012, we stopped at Sinclair Cove, where I took the photos of Maya's meltdown....

Heading back to the RV....

High Falls

High Falls in Wawa, along the Trans Canada in northern Ontario, is a must see every time we are passing by. We had stopped there to take photos back in 2012...

We also stopped by on our trip back home from the west coast in July of 2024. The rock lookout from earlier years was no longer accessible. There was just the lower viewpoint now. So Jan held the dolls on top of the railing.....

...and I took close-ups....

Then that fall we were passing by again, so I took more photos. I wanted to include a horse this time, so we set up the projector stand....

Return to the Village

All the original photos of Byuri and her mother Asa were taken back in 2012. Almost all of them were of them travelling through the spectacular scenery along the west coast. I did want to try and take some photos of them in an actual village, so we went to the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, so I could take some photos of them with the recreated Haida village. Problem was, there was nowhere to park, so Jan stayed in the Rv and I had to go out by myself to take some quick photos. There was no way I could take photos of the dolls by myself, so I opted for just some nice photos of the buildings, thinking I might be able to add Byuri and her Mother in later...

I didn't have the skill to add the dolls 14 years ago, but I do now. So I chose this photo of the longhouses....

...and this photo of Byuri and Asa, with the same kind of lighting, in front of a longhouse in Thunderbird Park in Victoria....

So, using layers in Photoshop I added them into the photo of the UBC longhouses....

But something didn't look quite right. When taking close-ups of the dolls the background would not be that sharp (see the original photo of the dolls in front of the longhouse in Thunderbird Park above, where the totem pole and longhouse are both out of focus behind them). So I fuzzed the photo from UBC a bit and did it again, to create a much more believable photo....

Back Home

Way back in 2013 I had taken a photo of Byuri and Asa 'inside their home'.....

There were just a couple of identical shots, and they were all very dark endnote very sharp, and I really wanted something more. So I decided to try and create a new, somewhat believable interior. I used some cardboard from a recent reno project, and gathered everything remotely West Coast themed that I had, along with any other props that might have existed in a native longhouse. I figured my usual cloth flooring could represent a trampled earth floor, and I put together a scene....

I used my Thunderbird figure, that I'd made years ago, to be a 'protective figure' inside the longhouse....

...and I borrowed the Sun mask, Raven puppet, and 'bentwood box', from Raven Steals the Sun, another native-inspired cloth doll that I made many years ago.

Then I used a flashlight to shine onto the 'fire' , and make it glow when I took the photos....

*To learn more about my native-inspired figures - Native Figures

A Stand-In

My biggest problem with trying to create new scenes with Byuri and her Mother, was that Asa had been given a new faceup in 2013 to become Queen of the Night, so I couldn't use her in the new photos....

So I needed a stand-in to replace her, and I chose Soa, who is also an Asian sculpt. She was the same resin colour, with the same older JID body. But I could only photograph her with her hat down, hiding much of her face.

...or from the back, or in profile from the side....

But I really wanted some close-up photos of Asa as Byuri's mother for the new story, so ended up choosing some old photos of her from 2012, and layering them into newly taken photos with the new interior set in the background....