I had a heck of a time putting this together. It was almost going to be a self-portrait but luckily I've got great friends! Woke them up at 10 on a Saturday and even though they were both hungover they agreed to help. First we bought crickets from the pet store, then the lip stuff and finally red paintbrushes (they're easier to find than red chopsticks). Thanks to Carol for letting me stick crickets in her mouth. And thanks to Dean, my cricket wrangler, for all the help. Thanks to Michael, as well, for his helpful advice and critiques. It was his idea to glue the sticks and cricket together.
Only 25 crickets were harmed while making this photo. They actually all died in the truck while we bought the lip stuff :(
Precise editing steps for challenge(because I can never remember them, so I just take detailed notes now):
cloned out glue and stray hair
crop
Noise Ninja
Brightness to 89
Exposure +.34, -.0294, +.93
Dodge top of chopsticks and cricket
Burn bottom of chopsticks and cricket
Color Balance (S -9/0/6, M 8/0/9, H -26/0/31)
cloned out freckle
USM 106/23.3/0 (lips only)
Resize to 640
USM 52/3.7/12
Save for web
Thank goodness for Advanced Editing!
Statistics
Place: 37 out of 111 Avg (all users): 6.4936 Avg (commenters): 7.3846 Avg (participants): 6.2632 Avg (non-participants): 6.6263 Views since voting: 2313 Views during voting: 383 Votes: 156 Comments: 17 Favorites: 1 (view)
Excellent rendition! The lips are nice and shiny :-) The only issue I see here is the cricket looks dead, whereas in the original it had one leg entering the mouth so it looked more authentic. Still a very, very good facsimile, reflected in a nice score.
There is no way I would agree to having crickets go anywhere near my mouth. I gotta' give props to Carol for doing something like that.
The lips are nice.
Colours are very bright and vibrant. =D Great work.
Oh way to go Brian! You did really good on this one! Perfection! And congratulations on the addition of another great photo to your "best photos" on your profile page.
As much as I find the thought of a cricket/grasshopper as unappetizing I do appreciate all the fine details and the technicals of this composition. Those red tones really pop off of the white background. Reds are vibrant and bold and immediately capture the eye. Details are really sharp even on the grasshopper. The one thing that I would suggest to improve this image is to cut down on the gleam for it is a little overbearing and distracting. A good polorizer will cut down on the glare and reflection (problem is I don't know how much as that it just might eliminate all the sheen which is not what you want to do). Hmmmm, perhaps a selective editing in toning down the brightness/contrasts, gamma adjust or possibly the use the clone tool with a transparancy of say 10% so that you don't entirely cover the sheen up but just tone it down.
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