Tabletops & Not So Tabletop - Catzilla

Copyright ©Kipp Baker, 2007. All rights reserved.

The assignment was, again, generated by the camera club's competition in closed category: Tabletops. Should be simple really - just construct a set for a photograph on a table top.

Only I'm such a contrarian.

I wanted to impress the viewer - a judge no less. I wanted to make it look as non-tabletop as possible and thereby stand out from the crowd. To be sure, the finished product has those elements, but the clues are overwhelming - this is a small set...It could have been made on a table...despite the exterior trappings and look of a high mountain desert in the southwestern US...

When judged, the print immediately drew gasps, guffaws and snickers (which, btw, is the cat's name - not Catzilla - [that's just to help the concept + visual effect.]) As the judge began his critique, he immediately began his discussion with a comment about heavily Photoshopping an image.

I shook my head, no... There was very little Photoshopping to this. The audience reacted and the immediate buzz and commotion drowned out any beneficial comments or observations the judge was making.

He didn't believe this wasn't "Photoshopped."

I didn't know why it mattered.

It was taken with a digital camera (Canon 20D, 10-22mm zoom and strobe lighting), but truth is - the only digital effects were to remove some sensor dust spots and lightly enhance the flash-bulb effect from the girl's toy camera. (It really does light up - but it's an incandescent bulb - like in a small flashlight - incorporated into the toy - and it only glows - it doesn't flash...) My cat - Snickers, AKA "Catzilla" had jumped up onto the table during my setup - and I decided to put him to work.

To me the cat made the image a perfectly humorous comment on our automobile culture and obsession with being tourists. Again, my photograph got modest points and no ribbon - but the stir of the crowd (about 120 good folk) made it all worthwhile and fun.

It's not often a photograph reaches the plateau where its elevation is well above a tabletop...but I think this one's a real butte.

kipp @ pixure.com

The Mask of Narcissus

...was self-assigned - created as an entry for our local camera club's "closed competition" category of Special Effects. There are some minimal Photoshop touches to clean off dust spots from the scan and ensure color, but essentially, this is what is on the film.

I spent a day or so thinking about what to do; gathering props; assembling it; shooting tests and another day actually creating the final shot in about 7-10 minutes - and all done on a single piece of transparency film (120mm Velvia 50) at twilight on a porch of my home.

Good thing about the time factor - the setup outside my home (no studio space then) was made during the only two days in February that were warm enough. The morning after the shot, and just after I had taken the set down, a nasty freezing rain storm hit. In two rolls of film, this one shot seemed uniquely best - there were others, but only 4-5 "similars" which were acceptable.

I was sad to discover I'd be unable to attend the competition's meeting when critiques were rendered, but it must have been fate to spare me the indignation. Our judge for the competition, the senior curator of photographs at the local museum, completely passed it over - giving it no ribbon, modest points, and is reported to have said, "well, we've all seen this one a million times..."

- go figure.

It contains every special effect I could think of to incorporate into a single shot:

• Levitation
• Light painting
• Multiple strobe pops
• Multiple exposures
  
• In-focus + out-of-focus/blur effects
  
• Star-burst filters
• Gradation filters
• Motion blur
• Off axis composition
  
• Constructed set effects
  
• The odd mask for a subject
• ...and a surreal mythological concept - quite relevant to today's culture...

...or so I thought.

Aside from its brethren exposures on the role, I'd never seen anything like it...
...but I'll keep trying.