Who doesn’t love a good challenge? Especially a photography challenge. It makes you think, it broadens your horizon, it pushes you outside your comfort limit. Recently I participated in a challenged hosted by APC. The challenge, of which I chose to except, was to make a creative image using a light bulb, a piece of string, and a key. You could add anything else to the image, just as long as those 3 images were clearly visible.
Although there was not a huge turn out in the challenge, some amazing images were created. All different approaches and all different styles.
My original idea was to take a light bulb, and try to stab a key into it. Or at the very least, get a whole in the light bulb, and stick the key into it. Then I was going to set it up to look like it is laying in blood. Well if you know anything about light bulbs, they don’t break with a nice neat whole, they shatter. So I ended up working with a shattered light bulb. I set out some plastic bags, covered w/ white paper, layed out the light bulb, well the pieces at least, and created my pool of blood. I knew I was planning on taking the image in black and white, so I used good old fashioned maple syrup for blood. Since I had to have the key and string in the image, I tied the string to the key, and carefully layed on my bloody scene. Then I set my camera to the sharpest, highest contrast, black and white setting, then upped the exposure. (I was also going for a high key look. ) Set it on the tripod (I was working inside with poor lighting) and started shooting at several different angles. After a short trip in Photoshop, honestly, I did some minor editing, decreased contrast, cleaned up the edges, where the sheet of paper ended, etc. This was my final image (You might recognise it from my new banner above):
I took 2nd place in the challenge. First place went to Adriana Glackin.
Here are the rest of the entries:
Are you up to the challenge?
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All of my work can be puchased as premium art cards, and most are available as matted prints, laminated prints, mounted prints, canvas prints, framed prints, and posters. All in varying sizes. To see more work and/or purchase click here. (or click on a particular image)
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