I was going to take a break from competing on DPC for a couple of weeks, but then got inspired this afternoon. I knew we had a couple of gutted copiers that we'd been robbing parts from and I could likely get a shot looking through the body, suggesting I was troubleshooting a broken machine.
My original idea was to show my head and a flashlight looking into the machine, but there weren't any large gaps that seemed right for the purpose. I did find that removing the image units left four holes at the back of the machine that were just about eye size. The G11 was just small enough to allow me to wedge it inside the opening in the front. Initially I had tried illuminating my eye from the same side as the camera, but it just cast a sickly blue LED glow where I didn't want it to go. Then I tried putting the flashlight in the hole next to my eye, as if I were using it to peer inside the copier (which I have spent plenty of time doing for real when fixing these things!) A swap out for a smaller led flashlight, and a few more frames till I got all the positioning right.
I'm particularly pleased with how this turned out. Looks very cyborgy. I think this is pretty darn good, but since this is DPC, I figure a high 5 will be doing well. Hoping it doesn't get trashed in voting.
Anticipated comments & critiques:
-Bright areas on the right an left distracting.
-Don't like centered comp.
-Expecting at least one "Borg" comment.
[Feb. 25th, 2011 11:00:54 PM]
Too many people guessing that this entry is mine! Except for my wife. After she voted, I asked her if she identified mine and she named 5 other entries that weren't it. (I'll have fun picking on her about that for a while.)
Doing quite well. It's not my first challenge entry related to my job, but I seem to have finally nailed it good with this one.
gcoulson left an insightful comment regarding the borgish looking flashlight and my eye being what made the shot. I thought that it might be interesting to show a sequence of my outtakes, as I experimented to find an arrangement that worked with copier guts. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do, but it took a bit of playing around with it to figure out something that actually worked.
Post challenge notes:
Certainly can't have any complaints about this, and I didn't get any 1's!
...and the #3 highest rated entry with the Powershot G11, how cool is that?
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 43 Avg (all users): 6.7488 Avg (commenters): 6.8000 Avg (participants): 6.1429 Avg (non-participants): 6.8144 Views since voting: 5673 Views during voting: 529 Votes: 215 Comments: 39 Favorites: 0
Congrats on the red for this great shot! I would have never guessed this was a photocopier, looks like a nuclear reactor :).
Not enough Borg comments, I'd say.
This looks like a Spiffy entry? Think if it wasn't for the flashlight, the image would've fallen short, but the eye on one side and the blue "bionic" eye on the other adds the necessary interest.
I think I would have preferred "F You A..." as a terminator reference for a title, but you were wise to avoid that one. But the simple truth is that this is not only a brilliantly exposed and detailed photo, but the composition is really otherworldly. Great stuff.
Back to say Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. No? Fine. I'll move along.
I think I see the problem...
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