Sunset Like Mustard and Ketchup

ok, so it's not a real sunset, but this photograph is basically

straight out of the camera, with only minor tweaks in post

processing to saturation, levels, curve (shaped to s-curve),

sharpness and crop. The silhouettes are exactly what the camera saw,

as is the illumination. And thoughts would be much appreciated.

I don't know what I'm looking at but the molten surface of the sun comes to mind. Hiding on a jagged asteroid about to fry in the solar radiation of the sun is sort of like a sunset... right ?

 

I like the fact that despite the foreground shapes being geometric, they are soft edged and the orange light spills over their sides like fog settling on the ground. A very creative abstract.

Gord, thanks for commenting on this. I drew a bit of inspiration from your picture of the plant between two panes of glass, and also inspiration from bright and gaudy sunsets. I have some sheets of glass here that were supposed to be shelves in a small cupboard, but they were the wrong size.

 

So....I was just about to eat my dinner, which meant getting tomato ketchup and mustard out of the cupboard. And as the glass jar of bright yellow mustard stood next to the glass jar of bright red ketchup, I saw an instant sunset. So I splodged some mustard on a sheet of glass, and then some ketchup, and spread it around with a spoon. Then I overlaid some randomly cut out pieces of paper from my gas bill to act as "skyline". Then I just propped it up, pointed the camera, turned out the lights and added back illumination in the form of my small LED torch - just moving it around behind the glass during the exposure.

 

Bit of a funky photograph resulted I think - it sort of reminded me of one of those oil filled colour wheels that used to be used a lot in discos, or a lava lamp! I was pleased with appearance of burning sun that came from this one :)

 

I'm coming up with more thoughts now - like squashing a banana between the two sheets of glass.

 

Cheers again.

 

 

Lava lamps! now that's a trip ( literally ) down memory lane :)

 

I like this even more knowing how it was done. Those bright dots really do look like sun spots. The paper did remind me somewhat of a cityscape, more like a skyline from Dr. Zuess or a comic book skyline. There is no end to what you can squash between panes of glass ... just stay clear of the penis puppets... ouch!!

I love this picture! Makes me think of some modernistic city, seen through a small porthole. The building-like shapes look like they could almost spell something, and the colors are wonderful. The "sun spots," or multiple setting suns, or not-so-distant stars are, I bet, the times your torch passed through the perpendicular plane to your lense. Whatever the physics, this is artistically a strong image that can evoke strong reactions from viewers. It'll be interesting to see what folks write about how they see and react to this image.

You spilled the beans too quickly. You would have had us guessing what this is for weeks!

The colors are amazing and the creativity, just the thought to put this shot together is outrageous.

Now I'll go and see some of your other images, you set the bar high.

 

Thanks for the comment son my image too.

 

Doug

Gord...Dr. Seuss - yep, I see the similarity there. We have lots of the Dr. Seuss books here - I can see the cat in the hat now! As for your last point....puppetry of the penis....I'm cringing at the thought and will definitely try to avoid going down that road :)

David, many thanks as ever for your thoughts - I see the porthole and the sunspots. I think the spots may have been to do with small bubbles as well as (as you mention) the direction of the beam of the torch. And the appearance of letters too - I didn't think about that. Maybe it would be worth doing something with a word - more food for thought.

Douglas, many thanks for the kind words - I appreciate it as it spurs me on to experiment with more ideas that just come into my head. Sometimes I think I'm going mad (well, almost) and my wife thinks this even more, so it's always good when a plan comes together!

 

I agree that I should have kept people guessing on this one - I always end up spilling the beans early though.

 

Thanks again all!