Hourglass Explosion. Exploding hourglass on black background with flying glass, sand, and bits of wood. Exploding Hourglass - Representing Time, Deadlines, Pressure and More. n exploding hourglass illustratingt time-related concepts. The explosion occurs against a black background with flying debris like broken glass shards, bits of wood and the sand.

I was doing a business shoot in an office in Argentina. We had completed the shoot and were packing up our equipment, props and so forth when our stylist had an accident and dropped this hourglass. Under the heading of "making lemonade out of lemons" when I got back to my apartment I set up a still life on the kitchen table. I had a black velvet cloth (always good to have when shooting on location) which a layed out over the table and then swept up onto two light stands. I arranged two Profoto 7b power packs, with two heads bounced off the walls and ceiling. I photographed the wooden hourglass in several different positions, then photographed numerous pieces of the broken glass from a variety of angles. Finally, I had my associate toss small hand fulls of the sand in the air. I shot the sand at 1/250th of a second with my Canon 5D set to f11. It was then a relatively simple matter to use a clipping path to outline all of the individual elements, then copy and paste them together to create this composite image. Rather than try and use a clipping path on the sand (an impossible task), I simple copied and pasted those images in, then used layer masks to isolate the sank portions. Finally, I add some motion blur and some radial zoom blur to the sand to give the image that sense of action. To create the look of overlapping pieces of glass I used the opacity settings of the individual glass layers to apply a global tansparency, then enhanced the effect with layer masks of graduated degrees of opacity painted in using a large, soft-edged airbrush. The total time that went into the Photoshop work was about three hours...and that was on a Mac Powerbook that I had with me in my Buenos Aires apartment. I have found, when on location shoots, that my downtime is spent in a much more rewarding fashion when I do a little Photoshop work rather than watch late-night TV. Because when I travel I always have a camera with me, I find there is never a shortage of subject material with which to work. I just wish the batteries would last longer so that I could accomplish more on those long international plane flights. Often in business class one can connect the power supply to the seats, but I seldom end up flying business class. Oh well! This particular image has sold reasonably well, and certainly more than paid off the cost of replacing the prop. The prop agency actually insisted that we track down a glass blower ourselves and return the hourglass in it's original condition. Not only did we have to pay to rent and fix the hourglass, but we spent the better part of a day finding, delivering and picking up the prop! On top of that, I felt so sorry for the stylist, who was obviously distressed over her accident, that I told her not to worry I would take care of everything. Of course, since I barely speak enough Spanish (my guide told me I speak Spanish like Tarzan), I had to also hire a translator to help me with the whole process! It is a wonder that I stay in business!


Lund,sb10064696a-001,sb10064696a-001.jpg,lrsb10064696a-001.jpg