I took well over 100 exposures of this bullet...I ended up using the first one, go figure. I wanted to show pain, but at the same time, I didn't neccessarily want to show a person in pain. So I opted for a symbolic image, smoke rising from a discharged bullet. This was my first time trying to photograph smoke, so I'm very pleased with the results. It's definantly a finiky thing, cause after the first great exposure, I had about 100 or more terrible ones. As for how I got the smoke to rise up out of the bullet, I just lit a match, blew it out and dropped it into the bullet. TADA! Speed is of the essence too, The smoke did'nt stick around very long, and the amount you get is totally unpredictable! I don't have any kind of photo editing software thats capable of helping me clean out the tiny bits of dust (darn it all!) so for now I'll just have to live with it until I can get my hands on something like photoshop. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the end result. It's definantly a Keeper.
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This was one of the few entries that I felt expressed the idea of pain without actually displaying it visually. Definitely deserved more. As for photo editing software, I strongly recommend the free (and open source) GIMP (just google for it). Extremely powerful, though it takes some time to learn.
I like political statements in photographs, but I find that the most persuasive ones are the subtle and unargumentative. In this sense the photo is unconvincing. But it is visually strong.
Very good picture. I think the lighting with the smoke works very well. I don't like all the little white specks you can see in the foreground. I think this would work a lot better if you took the foreground out of the picture entirely and had a bullet, smoke and negative space.
You did a fantastic job of capturing the smoke, nice light and tonal quality. Great composition.... I only found the dust particles at the base of the frame, somewhat distracting.
Nice idea! There are a couple of distracting items (dust on floor, and spurious smoke in left corner). Also, it looks a little soft - could use some sharpening. The smoke came out great.
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