In the middle ....

"Err.... Huston, are you sure I landed on Mars ?

I am in the middle of these unknown alien eggs....
I hope you are correct. Over."

_______________

Again, another very difficult photo competition title for the month of June from a photography forum I always hang out: In the middle. And the criteria stated that the submitted photo need to be funny to grab the attention of the judge.

I absolutely has no idea of what so ever type of photo that can tell "in the middle" and it's a funny one. After some nights of thinking and thinking, here are some of my ideas :
1) A car broken down on a remote land, where a sign saying the nearest petrol station is 100 miles away.
2) A man walking in a desert found a telephone booth making call. Could be to his boss or wife saying "I'm in the middle of no where, are you sure you give me a correct address ?"
3) A man sitting in the middle of a busy passer by minding his own business.
4) One fella sitting in a library/coffee house/by the busy street in deep thought, slow shutter speed to blur out the passer-by : in the middle of deep thought.
5) One fella sitting on the floor reading something, 4 flashes flash on him: In the middle of attention.

Later I found out idea 1 is too difficult to execute, idea 2 is actually a real case happen in Pahang (or Kelantan) flooding incident, idea 3 and 4 are my choices but who wants to be my model ? And the last idea although I myself can become a model, I can do it. But being a "supermodel", I'm quite expensive to be hired for this. (!!!) pengsan, muntah.

I was about to abort this challenge until I remember I had bought some glass balls some months ago, and I used to play Lego. I have Lego spacemen!

Carefully examine the glass balls, and the Lego spaceman, and re-think idea 1 & 2, why not I alter my original plan and use the Lego man as my model instead ?

The glass balls look like the alien eggs to me. Hey, why not creating a scene like a spaceman landed on a planet and he is surrounded by these unknown alien eggs ? Ok what, right ?

So, first, let me introduce, my model, the Spaceman Whiteson !

Hmm.... picture blur? Nevermind, just introduction, no need clear clear pic one ! LOL

Some test shots before my final result :
First, I put the glass balls onto a plate, and position Whiteson like standing in the pool of alien eggs. A test shot was taken, doesn't need to be sharp, and go to hell the WB wrong, just want to get the composition and see if Whiteson get well along with the alien eggs.


Hmm... "eggs" on plate do not look nice. Hence, test shot no. 2 !

This time, I create one white backdrop by sticking a huge A2 size white paper on the wall and let it fall onto a stool to create a line-less backdrop. I scattered the glass balls to create a carpet of "eggs" on the "floor", and pull away Whiteson's leg and let him sunken into the eggs pool.


Again, don't care the focus is out, go to hell the WB wrong, I just want to get the frame correct or not. Look lot better than my 1st test shot.

Then the fine tuning process began. Repositioning Whiteson in the egg pool, adding a flash with strip soft box to camera right, this time carefully focus on Whiteson, recompose and snap and the picture on top of this post will be my submission picture.

Here is the set up shot:

An F42 into a DIY strip soft box. Why strip soft box ? Because it's the nearest soft box I could find in my messy room. LOL. It wasn't been plan to use strip softbox, but the spectacular reflection of the glass balls take my attention, I know I use the correct softbox; the reflected strip on the balls look like the alien lavae, correct ? LOL

BUT, unfortunately, being a Moderator of that forum, I'm disallowed to participate into this competition. *Sigh*

Anyway, it's just the fun of creating the photo for the competition. I don't know if I submitted this photo into the competition, what are my chances of winning ? Can I make it into the finalist ? :P