My teammates asked me who I buried
It was my husband
I wish he would have told me that he let the life insurance lapse BEFORE I took the photo!
I would have given him a straw.
[Oct. 19th, 2025 08:58:55 PM]
So I tried to think of something for unique -- but hit a roadblock. So I started thinking of unique businesses. What about a graveside delivery service -- from the grave?
"Hey Jeff -- I want to take a photo of a hand coming up through the dirt, holding a flower. "
He long ago stopped asking why.
He baulked a little bit when I said I was going to photograph it indoors.
I thought it was pretty stupid, too. But it just seemed easier at the time, since I needed 3-4 studio lights.
So he pulled in two saw horses, a bag of dirt, a couple of different plant ideas, a large piece of foam core, and once we realized how heavy the dirt was, a couple of 2x4s, which wasn't quite enough so some long metal things.
In the meantime, I found the 3D printed moon nightlight. (I've tried it before, and it's too dim to really work with. But I thought maybe a long exposure and the a flash??) Brilliant idea!! Try putting a strobe directly behind it!! And it worked beautifully!
I didn't have a way of hanging the moon, so I had my great-grandma's tall candlestick and it sat beautifully on top of that, which was on top of a book, on top of a TV tray -- all to get the right height! Then I put the strobe behind it.
There wasn't much room, so I had to put a black backdrop over a china cabinet to hide it, a black bag over the tv tray, and a black vflat behind everything.
Then comes the dirt!
We bought pansies and mums to try, but a lily from a flower arrangement someone sent worked the best.
Strobe in the front right for a bit of fill, strobe to the right side for textures, strobe behind the moon, and strobe up high to try to get a little rim lighting (which didn't really work)
And then a very kind husband that sits underneath the saw horses, with his hand up through the foam core, holding a lily.
Thanks for the comments!
Statistics
Place: 8 out of 55 Avg (all users): 6.3333 Avg (participants): 6.0645 Avg (non-participants): 7.3750 Views since voting: 54 Views during voting: 96 Votes: 39 Comments: 4 Favorites: 0
Amazing and the most creative of the challenge. I remember when more images were scientific like this one ;) and it was so much fun to try figure out.
Thank you for the in depth description of your journey. It sounds like you had fun.
Congratulations on your great image.
Thanks for sharing all those setup notes! Your husband is a real hero of a studio partner, too. The best outputs are always the collaborative ones, though, right? I'm so glad your efforts with this one were richly rewarded.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
