dead birds & such

I was excited about shooting today. Right now I'm waiting for Ben to get back from San Diego where he had to put in a court appearance. This morning I picked up the truck from Erik's house then drove over to the equestrian staging area. But as I worked on angles for the dead bird shot, I realized that I could just shoot this at home. So I went home (only about a mile away) and shot the bird in the car.

It was tough. My first attempt at lighting didn't look right. Fortunately, the sun moved and then it looked better. I had to add an extra 500 watts to make the bird visible with the sun blowing out part of the seat but it came out pretty well. The bird itself... it's hard to make a dead bird look like anything. Dan will have to add some bird swarming noises to the shot before. I had some leftover glass from when the shower glass broke and poured on some fake blood. The glass made a huge difference. Without the glass it's not clear that the crow burst through the car window. The fake blood was good too. It looked better than karo and food coloring although that is essentially what it is.

I wanted to get some movement in the shot so I sprayed some haze, but that wasn't visible. I tried a fan, but that wasn't powerful enough. So I just sat there blowing on the bird as I shot it. I used the fish eye so I was right on the bird, literally about a quarter inch away (see above). This is about as good as it's going to get.