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....
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