Today.. I had this idea for the next tournament image.. but after it turning out quite disasterously.. I have decided to to with another concept.. so it is alright for me to talk about this one here.
The theme is "Action".. which is not the typical studio shot. I live in a small town and there are not alot of events that happen that would give me a good shot let alone a great one.
So I came up with the idea of capturing the cork coming out of a champagne bottle.
Now.. the problem is my camera does not take pictures fast enough. I have no cable release... and I can't afford several bottles of champagne to try and do this pic.
So.. I come up with this (what I thought at the moment) great idea.. to use baking soda and vinegar.. and get it to explode.. Of course I have to be able to capture the cork coming out.. so I figured I'd trick that part.. and get it wired in the air atop the bottle so when the fizz came shooting out.. it would be in the proper place.
Well. I started in the kitchen sink.. I learned that I needed a moderate amount of baking soda and alot of vinegar to get it to shoot out about 8-9 inches.
So. I set up in the living room.. (yes.. my studio is either my kitchen or the livingroom depending on the space I need). I put a huge plastic all over the floor.. this may get messy. I needed something that was quite shallow so I could get close enough with my camera. So I used the piano bench. The legs of the piano bench were a little short .. so when my camera was on the tripod.. I couldn't get down low enough.. and I wanted the shot straight on.
So.. look around for 4 things that are the same height..to put under the legs. You'd think it would be easy.. but actually I had a darned time finding something. I finally went with 4 soup bowls turned upside down. How pitiful is that? anyways.. it worked.. it was at a great level.
So after draping it with black material.. and setting up a spot behind I'm almost ready to do my shoot.
The spot looks great.. but too white. So I figure .. a nice blue glow on the black background would be nice. So I put a piece of glass over the spot.. so I can put on some blue tissue paper without it burning.. Well, the tissue paper didn't burn but the glass got very hot and literally shattered.
After picking up the pieces.. without cutting myself, mind you.. I thought.. well.. I'll try the lighting on the side. directed toward the ceiling.. and bouncing back down and I will see what effect it gives. I'm worried if I leave the lamp there. .the water will shoot out and really cause an explosion with the hot lamp.
Everything seems to be working fine until I have to actually do the mix. First I have to put in the soda.. no problem. Now I have to set up the camera to take the pic with a delay. I have no choice. I can't be at two places at the same time... although I multitask.. still not fast enough. So I try it with 2 seconds.. obviously I can't pour enough vinegar in 2 seconds.. to get the fizz to come up.. and get my hands out of the way. 10 seconds isn't much better. I'm trying to count it.. but I am not able to get it right. so I 'm either too fast.. or too slow. Last time around.. it shoots up literally 3 feet in the air... of course I miss it.. but I get alot of space wet.
It just wasn't going to work. So.. I have abandoned the idea and am on to another one.. Something tamer! lol!
I look back on the year that I have taken photos and it's funny to me to what lengths I sometimes go to take a shot. I have taken apart alarm clocks, painted backgrounds. chipped out lightbulbs, etc., etc.
I did an image last year.. for a theme at Worth called Green. Green is what we call the color of money.. so I made a dollar sign out of matches that I painted green to make the statement.. Money to Burn.
Here is a small version of the image:
Here is what I had to do to get the shot.
I glued 1500 matches to the dollar sign I made. You can't be sloppy at this point. you don't want to see any glue at all. Then as luck would have it I couldn't find green matches.. so I painted them. After putting everything on black posterboard (If I had to do it over I would have used something else) I hotglued a match at an angle to make it look as if it were just standing up there on it's own.
Here is a composite of the work done:
The last three images on the bottom are pics I took when I burned it outside.
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