This idea came to me late on the day the challenge was {supposed} to close & I picked up the eggs & chicken pot pies on the way home from work. I didn't start shooting until 10pm because I had to figure how to make my 'setting': a white or gray limbo with a black reflective surface. To be honest, although it turned out exactly like I pictured it, once I saw it I decided I didn't like it but it was too late to try something different with the challenge deadline {supposedly} looming. I also didn't notice Rhoda's shadow until I started editing the image. The post process wasn't much, really: several adjustment layers for curves, levels, hue & sat, channel mixer and selective color; a modest unsharp mask to help with the sharpness after .jpg conversion, crop & save for web.
One of my teammates asked about Rhoda, the chicken - here's my response from out of our team thread:
As for the chicken, Rhoda is actually one of two chickens we recently adopted...
To make a long story longer, one of my sons had chicken eggs in his classroom that they were studying. My son happens to be a bird & fish aficionado at the tender age of 6 - he's a bit obsessed with learning in general, but has particular affinity towards chickens, turkeys, moths & large mouth bass :) Anyway, when the eggs hatched, he volunteered us to watch the chicks over a holiday weekend. One of the chicks had a lame leg & when my wife learned from the teacher that it would be killed when the birds went back to the farm, she insisted that we save her. I told her as long it didn't violate any village ordinances, I'd be fine with it . Well, of course Lefty (my nickname for the chick) couldn't just be adopted by herself, says my wife, she would be lonely! So that's how we got a second chick, Rhoda (they're both of the Rhode Island Red variety).
-SH
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POST:
Thanks everyone for not being up on me over the poor lighting job on this one!
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9 months later & I just noticed how close I was to a ribbon with this one (.0041). I'd really like to know who the two people that gave me 3s are and what their reasons were for doing so... just a little a bitter, I am >:(
Statistics
Place: 4 out of 304 Avg (all users): 6.7244 Avg (commenters): 7.6500 Avg (participants): 6.5278 Avg (non-participants): 6.8929 Views since voting: 4708 Views during voting: 272 Votes: 156 Comments: 37 Favorites: 12 (view)
Almost burst out laughing, albeit uneasily, when I saw this photo. Lucky chicken though, I realize having read the blurb on this photo, to be pulled from the poultry industry loop.
well shawn .. you've seriously kicked some butts in this challenge .. congratulations on an excellent photograph and a near pb!! i was thinking that a chick hatching would go well for this challenge but finding one posed a few problems .. i considered going to the local chicken farm, but felt a bit shy to ask them if i could sit around waiting for an egg to hatch .. (i dont actually know any chicken farms around here but i was assuming there'd be at least one, coz i live in a fairly rural setting ..)
anyway .. enough about chicken farms ..
it appears that your son and your wife are largely responsible for your 4th place in this challenge!!! ..
i dont know why you dont like this image .. it is sooooooo transitions & it tells a story, even tho a bit sad .. lol ...
i particularly like how rhoda's looking intently at that pie with a sort'v questioning expression .. i'm sure animals, and birds in particular, have more intelligence than we give them credit for .. so you may have to bear a burden of guilt, when you realise from rhoda's behaviour, that you've given her a complex by putting her on that table between the egg and pie ... i reckon it would be totaly obvious to the poor chick the inference there .. i'm hoping rhoda will not be living in fear that she'll end up in a pie .. altho from her general demeanour i fear it is the case .. :):) ..
can't imagine why anyone would see it right to give this a 5 or less (indeed, anything bar a 9 or 10 really). really funny, and fit the challenge splendidly. well done on the 4th!
awesome...should be on the front page...congrats in advance 9 (my only neg is that I think that a frame this thick doesn't suit this image...and I love black frames) good luck
That is awesome! This is the first time I've laughed outright while voting on pictures. That must have taken a lot to get him in just the right place and pose. I know a lot of people are religious about the rule of three, but I think this would have had good effect if it was a center line.
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