This is a self portrait, shot within the last few hours of the challenge due to a busy work schedule.
My assistant/fiancee fired the camera via a pocket wizard at the moment the tofu reached the top of its arc, to minimize motion blur.
3 light setup. The key is a 12" reflector at camera right with a diffusion sock over the front. Fill is a 5' octabank directly behind the camera. Rimlighting is coming from a small vertical stripbank with a fabric grid and a yellow gel.
I had to crank the aperture to 22 to keep focus on my hand/tofu without losing my face. The living room studio does not afford much camera-to-subject distance so it was a tight fit.
Oh, and I spread out a cheapo plastic tablecloth on the living room floor to receive the speeding tofu when I occasionally failed to catch it on the way down. It is foresight like that which ensures my assistant will remain my fiancee.
In post, I tweaked the levels, cropped, tweaked noise reduction, clarity, saturation, contrast. I cloned out some tofu specks stuck to my hands, some razor nicks. Burned some extra contrast into the tofu and took down its sat. Then I smoothed out some shadow edges on my face and lightened the bags under my eyes. Added a touch of noise, downsized the image and uploaded it just in time.
Whew.
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Nice photo. The lighting coming from the left seems a little bright. I also wish you would have used an object to levitate that people might recognize. I can't tell if its a white brick, bar of soap, or a large hunk of feta cheese.
This is simply awesome. The toss something in the air and shoot it idea is a simple one, but your subject's pose and expression (not to mention the choice of tofu) put this shot way over top.
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