Challenge site link here.
Full size image here (looks best)
I was going to post how it was done in its comments but you are restricted to 300 characters or something.
So I made this post for the benefit of all.
I really wanted to stick as close to the theme as possible with the “Obvious Primary Dominant Identifiable” thing.
Originally I had the idea of having the egg falling like it is in this photo with the trail, but also to capture it landing and breaking open on something. I soon found out that to capture all the elements I wanted as well as the egg exploding on something at landing was going to be way too difficult to time without the benefit of a shutter closing sensor somehow.
So – how this was done.
Yes, the trails are real, if they were added by any other means the photo would not qualify.
I had the mini-studio set up in my wine cellar for complete darkness.
I had a cushion with a sticky post-it note in the centre as the egg drop-target.
I put an object on the drop zone to set up manual focus.
The background was an old speaker grill with black cardboard behind it, about 50cm back.
I used the D70, tripod mounted, and had it set up for Rear Curtain Sync, BULB and Remote – so I could use the press of the remote to open the shutter, and another press to fire the flash and close the shutter.
I didn’t use the built in flash. I had a hot shoe cable from the D70 to a Metz 45 CT-4, tripod mounted, high and about 30 degrees to the right.
The other flash was also tripod mounted, about 45 degrees on the left side, and further back for softer light on the “non-vapour trail” side. It was fired with a flash sensor trigger.
Both flash units had white umbrellas mounted in front of them to soften the light – no hot reflections to keep with the softness feel created by the “trail”.
The flash on the right was mounted high to produce the darker shadowing on the under side of the egg – to produce the effect of “falling into the darkness”. The egg close to the bottom of the frame was chosen for this reason as well.
But what about the trail?
This was the most difficult part. I tried various lighting sources – daylight, incandescent, eventually I used two bushwalking head torches, each with 8 bright LED’s.
They were mounted on a step ladder to the right and only slightly forward, and shining on an appropriate area, as close as I could get them which ended up being about 40cm.
The top of the trail in my photo has a subtle break or layer – sort of a line in the trail right at the top. This was created to amplify the idea of motion for the egg, sort of like what you see in a cartoon drawing to represent motion when they put lines in mid air behind the character that is moving.
The way it was done was to have the two head torches to the side mounted slightly apart (one slightly higher than the other), and having a piece of cardboard positioned to create the fading or shadowing at the top of the frame. As the two head torches threw the cardboard shadow at different angles, that produced this subtle, but satisfying effect for me.
So I would stand side on and slightly behind the cushion, open the shutter, drop the egg, and close the shutter (with flash fire) when I thought the egg was in the right place. And then bring my hand down quickly to save the egg before it bounced off the cushion.
The shutter is open, egg enters the area illuminated by the torches and the trail is exposed, the flashes fire to expose the egg and the shutter is closed.
I took a total of 412 photos including different lighting sources. In the end I chose this image, about 10 from the last image I took.
I was not able to take any more anyway – my egg bounced off the cushion too quickly… I should have boiled it.
Bob.
