Here are my latest shots for my latest homework. I need to do at least two shots, which are:
#1. An egg or eggs in any shape/form/condition I want and...
#2. A single egg, photographed in complete darkness.
Of course, for #2, I could use lights and what not. Or "create" multiple eggs by doing multiple exposure-flash tricks or mirrors (I tried the flash but it was a bit more involved than I thought to do a good shot, so I pass on it for now. But I know what I need to do if I really wanted to do it right). The main challenge in all this is to make it *interesting*.
To do the dark shot I basically cut a hole in the egg using one of these ultra-thin needles that diabetics use to puncture their finger, and emptied the contents. To light it up I have a small mag-lite, and two mini led-colored flashes. I had to put a piece of white matte paper or as I discovered later- a piece of facial tissue which works even better, in front of the light while inserting it into the egg to diffuse it and avoid a spot-light area. I noticed now that I was looking and selecting which photos to show, that I missed a bit on the depth of field to make all the areas I wanted sharp - in some of the photos. I still think this proved an interesting homework and I am reasonably happy with what I ended up with.
One thing I did try was to put some smoke/dust in the air by shaking a container of stevia powder. To those that may not be familiar with, stevia is a natural plant that is a sugar substitute - no calories, very sweet. I wanted to have like "snow" falling on top of the egg. But I discovered I need a fairly potent light to make the powder stand out. However, to my surprise in some of the shots, there's a little bit of a "water cascade" effect around the egg and a "gas like glow" - created by the stevia powder. This is pretty cool.
The gallery is here. As usual, comments & critique - good or bad - most welcome.
Update: shot #094 is in dire need of cropping- I realize that, shot #137 is to show one of my lighting setups and the egg + stevia powder all around, shots #030, #041, #043 were done by using the cardboard tube that is inside a roll of paper towel, to create the tunnel. Because this tube didn't quite cover the entire lens, I used aluminum paper to create a cone/wrap from lens to the tube and inserted the blue led for a good measure- so the tunnel has this bluish aura/cast.
Update #2: These shots have ZERO post processing. Zero. Nada. Empty String. Only resizing down + the copyright water mark. No gamma / constrast / levels / saturation / sharpness / noise reduction- whatever adjustments. 99% of them converted from RAW but colors and all as chosen on the camera. The amount of people that assume you are doing post processing is staggering....
The green egg shots are cool!
Posted by: nerbo | October 03, 2005 at 04:20 PM