When I thought this was going to be my entry, I typed up this long explanation:
I played around with a few ideas around trying to put an egg back together again. I wasn't sure whether I'd go with showing being able to do it or not being able to.
First, I knocked a big hole in one side and drained the egg. Mmmmm ... scrambled eggs.
Then I "artfully" smashed it by dropping it repeatedly on the counter.
Since my original idea was to show Humpty Dumpty, I built a wall for it to sit on out of my daughters' blocks. Didn't have enough red ones, so had to mix long red and short green.
Next, I cut out a small strip of posterboard and taped it to the back of the egg to hold it vertical.
I had fun backlighting the egg with a white flashlight - got a pretty cool glow effect coming through the cracks.
My older daughter has this blue fiber optic lamp, and I thought it'd look even cooler to have a couple of strands poking into the egg and shining blue through the front. Maybe those spots could be Humpty's soul. :)
Then I planned to hold up a piece of shell with tweezers to show me trying to get it back together again.
But after several takes, and different angles, I needed some more cracks. More artful smashing. But eventually I went too far and the egg nearly fell apart.
I'd never gotten the blue lamp out, so I figured I'd prop the egg up on it and snap a couple of shots. One of them ended up looking great.
Editing was simply cropping, sharpening, curves to enhance contrast, resizing, another round of USM, and noise reduction.
One fun note: I'm really enjoying my new Gorillapod, this flexible tabletop tripod thing.
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