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Absolut Silliness
Absolut Silliness
vawendy


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Absolut Advertisement II (Advanced Editing VII*)
Collection: 2011 challenges
Camera: Canon EOS-7D
Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS
Date: Jun 21, 2011
Date Uploaded: Jun 21, 2011
[Jun. 24th, 2011 05:44:32 PM]

No squirrels were inebriated in the making of this picture!!

This is NOT my fault!! A squirrel drinking vodka wasn't anywhere in my brain! It's all [user]cnovak [/user]and kelli's fault!

absolut thread

After comments like that, how could I resist? I had to try it... I had to see if the squirrel would pick up the bottle! I was doing it just to be silly. Here is the real shot that I did:



But when I showed the crew, they said I really should enter the squirrel.

Either people really have had it with squirrels, or they're thinking that I'm contributing to the delinquency of squirrels, because there have been a number of 1s and 2s recently.

Ah well. You know it had to be done.

I hadn't seen squirrels for about a week, and I waited until last minute to do this. I wasn't sure I could pull it off. I put out some bird seed, and it took about 8 hours for them to find it. After they finally found the bird seed, I emptied the bottle of vodka (no, I didn't drink it. :), put a little peanut butter inside the mouth of the bottle and put it back out.

I watched for about 1.5 hours before he came back. The problem was getting a shot where the label was facing the right way. He'd pick it up and turn it. I'd get some really fun shots, but with the bottle the wrong way. Also, there was a terrible glare on the bottle in most of the pictures.

At one point he dragged the bottle around.



I actually liked this shot, but at that point I realized that it was pretty silly to have him "drinking" if there was nothing in the bottle!

So I put a little water in the bottle and tried again.

I loved the way he was holding the bottle in this shot:



Kind of a "show me the love!" shot. But the glare was too harsh, and I didn't know how to fix it.

I'm glad that people appreciated it. I'm sorry if anyone seriously thought that I'd give a squirrel vodka.

And remember: it's [user]cnovak [/user]and kelli's fault!

Statistics
Place: 16 out of 63
Avg (all users): 6.3030
Avg (commenters): 7.9524
Avg (participants): 5.9048
Avg (non-participants): 6.4103
Views since voting: 1545
Views during voting: 473
Votes: 198
Comments: 32
Favorites: 2 (view)

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AuthorThread
 10/19/2021 12:12:00 AM
Absolutely perfect :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 02/26/2019 11:27:09 PM
Woulda scored higher if he'd had ear tufts :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/30/2011 08:44:58 AM
HAHA I think we are the only people who love squirrels like we do. Thanks for the chuckle.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/29/2011 12:39:53 PM
Great job on this shot -- it should have placed higher. It is very well executed and simply hilarious. I admire your patience. Fifteen votes below a 4 -- that is Absolut Silliness!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/29/2011 09:55:15 AM
haha! love it =)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/29/2011 12:56:44 AM
Only thing I can see that might hurt this (even though it may not be reflected in the comments) is the crop. In the context of an Absolut ad, you wouldn't crop the bottle. And in the context of the humor of a squirrel drinking vodka, it seems like it would work better if it wasn't so tight. I'm guessing there might have been no choice because of other things in the photo or maybe you framed it this tight. I gave the shot an 8 and didn't really notice the crop issue til now, although I feel like it may have influenced me subconsciously. Anyway, just my opinion. Hope it's useful.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/29/2011 12:07:23 AM
Only 16th place?! Please don't tell me the squirrel craze is over just as I was thinking of doing one!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
06/28/2011 06:20:28 PM
Absolut Cuteness to the inth degree!! Did he get a buzz?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/28/2011 05:26:35 PM
Well trained squirrel :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/27/2011 10:01:37 PM
did this come before or after you got 'em in the pan??
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/27/2011 07:37:32 AM
Now you're starting to scare me ;) There's going to be a genetic mutation in your area because of this. 8
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/26/2011 04:22:59 PM
You have these squirrels trained to do your bidding, don't you? :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/26/2011 02:42:26 PM
This is "Absolute" ly priceless. Kudos for convincing that cute little fella to participate in your project. Very nicely done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/26/2011 01:56:19 PM
haha this is cute 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/26/2011 11:47:13 AM
A vawendy image through and through. Only comment/criticism, I think the squirrel overshadows the bottle, which seems to be lacking in detail/contrast.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/25/2011 11:15:30 AM
Cute or what,super shot.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/24/2011 04:26:18 PM
Oh, my goodness.. I can only imagine how this was achieved!

Too silly!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/24/2011 02:25:54 AM
Oh, shame Wendy! Is that how you encourage them? LOL.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/23/2011 10:07:01 PM
Those squirrels just adore you don't they, I hope thats water in there, 10.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/23/2011 08:31:00 PM
We need the full story here!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/23/2011 06:43:49 PM
I'll bet this got a lot of "Cute" comments :)
Hope that bottle only had water and hope there are no PETA Nazis on the board to come after you :D
Very nice concept, well executed. Very neat dark background although the shot's clearly taken outdoors.

There's a bit of a dark green smudge on the top right corner of the pic. Not noticeable enough, but if you want to blow it up or print it, it might become more noticeable.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 11:29:31 AM
I would have loved to see the series of shots after he/she had drank it! haha. Sure this will do well for the comedy factor Wendy :-)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 10:47:55 AM
Very amusing (I suppose it had to be done).
=¬)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 09:07:20 AM
I need to know how you got him to hold the bottle!!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 08:46:42 AM
I am chuckling. I just love squirrels. We have 3 that I feed and so I've come to love them even more. You must've put something mighty tasty to get her to grab that bottle and drink. LOL
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 08:34:17 AM
can I give higher than a ten?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 08:10:29 AM
OMG! You actually did it! ROFLMAO!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 05:48:23 AM
Can't believe you got him to do this, you are a master of squirrels.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 01:40:19 AM
Squirrel alcoholics. Ya see them everywhere, but it's a problem nobody wants to admit exists. ;-)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 12:55:20 AM
Wendy are you responsible for falling squirrels
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 12:24:19 AM
Yup...vawendy.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 06/22/2011 12:07:14 AM
I'd comment... but I know you don't like it ... so, I won't. :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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