Okay, we’re back to the whole eggshell-as-brainless-monster theme. I’m totally on an egg kick right now. I just think they’re so anthropomorphic!
This setup was actually pretty complicated, partly because of the leverage caused by the drooling spaghetti, which kept wanting to tip the eggshell over onto it’s face, then the floor…and then I needed another eggshell. In the end, the trick was to put two pennies in the bottom part of the eggshell (as ballast), and then use superglue to attach the lower eggshell to a three-pronged stand made from pencils. I also superglued the eggshell top and bottom together, to give the whole thing more structural integrity. And I used a cordless drill to start the eye openings, which was like balancing a dump truck on a hamster—you have to go so slow.
And then came the delicate part: filling the shell with sauce, red-pepper relish, and guacomole, and then drapping the strands of spaghetti across the open maw. This reminded me so much of my time spent as a brain surgeon!
Once Mr. Drool was prepared, it was a simple (!) matter of placing the whole thing carefully behind a black backdrop and leaning it just so, such that the pasta would hang naturally. After that, it was just getting the lighting right, including the backlight that made the shell glow. What fun!
Here it is in full glory on Flickr.
Meta: Pentax K-3, 35mm f/2.8 macro lens @ f/8 or so, ISO 100, 1/160th of a second, all sorts of lights and reflectors assorted little prop thingies
