I hope this picture will do well because this is one of my most time-consuming submissions so far.
I got some new photography books for Christmas, and in one of them was a shot very similar to this one. After seeing how they did it, I knew that I would have to try it myself as a "learning exercise" if the opportunity ever presented itself. And what do you know... December 29th rolls around and the challenge is "Action Shot"! Here was the opportunity...
I looked for a cheap ceramic pig (like at the dollar store), but in the end I ended up having to pay $8.99 for one. It was probably the shortest amount of time ever between when I paid for something and then broke it (less than 30 minutes.)
But in actuality, there isn't much "action" at all, as this picture of the setup shows:
After (somewhat reluctantly) breaking the pig with a hammer (I'd never smashed a ceramic pig before, so I had no idea what would happen!), I glued the pieces of the pig and the coins to craft dowels. Then I had to wait for them to dry (which took a while and wasted a bunch of time). Next I shoved the dowels through a piece of black foamcore, behind which was a big chunk of styrofoam which helped stabilize them. After I inserted each piece, I would look through the camera and make sure the dowel wasn't visible, adjusting the angle of the piece as necessary. This "behind the scenes" shot shows the dowels poking through the foamcore into the styrofoam:
Once I had everything positioned, I put some baby powder inside the pig, set the self-timer on the camera, walked behind the setup, and using one of those little cans of compressed air, attempted to blow the powder to put some "dust and debris" in the air to give it a more "action" look. There is a little bit of this effect visible on the right side of the shot, but not nearly as much as I had hoped for, even after several attempts.
I was running out of time (of course I waited until the Sunday it was due to start on the shot), so I took what I had up to the computer -- I wanted to submit something after all the work. =]
The shot was lit mostly with my flash as straight-on as I could get it (if it was off to the sides at all, the shadows from the dowels were visible on the black background -- look at the first shot above to see what I mean). Unfortunately, this resulted in some pretty harsh lighting. I had a couple tungsten lights up high and on either side of the pig, but I think they were mostly washed out by the flash.
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Just to let you know...I just got this image, with a lot of other stop action images that look like DPC images, in an email from my mom. I knew it looked familiar so I had to find the original. They are all watermarked with this website: //www.widelec.org/ so not sure if you can do anything. I will however reply to my mom and point her to the the true original photograph.
Thanks for all the comments everyone! I agree that the lighting could have been better, but I was working with what I had and with a limited amount of time. I think this shot may have also appeared "dark" on some monitors (I just checked it on a friend's LCD and it didn't look all that great...)
Congrats on your top 10 finish. This was one of my favorites. I didn't get a chance to vote - but it would've been one of my high scorers. :-) Great work and great idea...
I saw such an image image in "product and still life photography" book. Yours is also very well done, I assume you used the same technique. Cropping is a bit tight, especially on the left and I am missing some more unsharp debris to add some more suggestion of movement. A give away is that some coins are more on the outside than the fragments of the pig, for example the one here in front. That can't be it the money was inside. (I checked the book now and see they did the same thing with the money... still looks illogical to me)
I don't know how you did this but the shot is damn cool. The issues I have with this are the reflections of the light, and the lighting of the overall photograph is too low in my opinion.
But for creativity, 10/10. Looks really cool, congratulations.
creative title, excellent exposure and composition. I'll be looking forward to your explanation after the challenge on how this was created. congrats on a fantastic effort!
Very nicely done - is this an actual explosion/ breaking or a very carefully set up studio shot? I'm not suggesting one is "better" or preferable to the other - the end result is what counts to me - but I am curious!
you have created a great freeze frame action shot here, my only comment is that the lighting and background could be improved. The lighting isn't strong enough, and the background would look better if it were completely black. But supurb job with the action! WOW!
You have to tell us how you did that!
Very creative. Light could be a little softer to reduce the reflexions and thus allow to increase the overall brightness. Also the the surface the poor pig stands on should be without any disturbances.
Anyhow, very well done and good luck to you.
Wow, This is an amazing shot! Don't tell me you got this on the first try? You must have alot of little pigs lying around. :-) Great capture! How'd you get the pig to explode outward like that? 9!
How did you break it? You froze the action well. But I think that if I would see maybe a hammer smashing the pig then I would like it better. But thats just me :)
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