goldengod

Thoughts of a Dying Athiest by Andrew Ferguson

This blog post is an entry for Jim Goldstein’s “Favorite Photo and Background Story” photography blog project. More details can be found at JMG-Galleries.

This photo was taken back in January 2006, less than a month after I got my first DSLR; a Canon Digital Rebel XT. I was hanging around with my friends Jon and Ian, talking and playing videogames. Around one in the morning, we decided to experiment with my new camera. No, not that kind of experimenting. Bloody perverts…

Anyways, we put the camera on a tripod and hooked it up to my computer for the first time. After thinking about it, we decided to black out the room and do long exposure shots in full dark.

We blocked off my windows with a 12′x6′ Memoirs of a Geisha cardboard display I had along with a double-layer of garbage bags. I had a single flash, an old Vivitar 283, but it couldn’t be used on-camera since the voltage would fry the Rebel. We set everything up, pointed the camera at a blank space on my wall and decided to take turns setting up shots.

All three of us would work to set up the props or lighting, with me handling all the camera stuff, until it looked good. Once the shot was done, we’d move on to the next person’s setup. Of all the photos I took, this one worked out the best. We had a great time taking these photos and wound up playing with the camera til the sun came up.

It’s a thirteen second exposure with a single flash fired. I used a bright red t-shirt as a really amateurish ‘gel’ for the flash and fired it from below and to the right of the camera, resulting in the vignetting effect. In total I took about 6 frames and this is the third or fourth.

It’s my #5 Most Favorited photo on Flickr and my top rated for interestingness. Full EXIF data can be seen on its Flickr page linked at the top and more images from the same series can be seen here. Just please keep in mind that this is us goofing off at 3am less than a month after I began to shoot using a DSLR, because some of my shots are crap.

Both props in the photo were sitting around the house and each has a bit of story behind them. The handcuffs are normally used to cuff a large black briefcase to my wrist. I don’t keep anything valuable in it; I just think it’s funny. Bouncers at clubs on Granville have asked me “is that the football?” jokingly when I passed.

The mannequin hand comes from a mannequin at a party I attended. The party had a Clockwork Orange theme with droogs as waiters and a number of mannequins in the milk bar. I found the hand on the floor and asked one of the droog-waiters where I should put it. He shrugged and said ‘Keep it’, so I did.

My favorite photo rotates often; I flip-flop at a John Kerry level. Today, this is my favorite. What’s your favorite photo that you’ve ever taken? Post links in the comments and I’ll go visit them or join me in participating in Jim’s project!