El Dave Photography

To everyone who looks down their noses at friendships made online, let me offer up this image as just how wrong you are. My good friends Adam and Sarah (whom I've never met face to face) sent April and I a Christmas package this year, and inside was an Uglydoll for April and this incredible Revoltech EVA for me. If this is the quality of people you meet online, I might never leave the house again!

Now to the business at hand; EVA Unit 03. I have never seen the Evangelion cartoon (yeah, yeah, I'll get to it someday), but I really dig the designs. I have a long history with giant robots. For Unit 03, I wanted to somehow capture just how huge these things are supposed to be, while at the same time having a little campy fun with it.

Trying to combine a cartoon robot (that I've never seen in action) with the classic image of Godzilla rising out of the sea to attack Tokyo presented some new problems that were fun to tackle. First off, where am I going to get enough water for this? Thought about the bathtub, but it was too deep and I couldn't safely get the camera at water level without April killing me. I thought about the sink, but I didn't want to try and clone out a giant faucet from behind my supposedly giant robot.
"AIE! We must flee the city! Unit 03 is attacking!"
"No, the children's singing has summoned the bathroom faucet to protect us!"

I tried a plastic bowel, but I couldn't get the light to work out (the dark plastic absorbed the light with no reflection) and the water wasn't deep enough for the shot I wanted. Finally, in a moment of desperation, I grabbed the largest metal mixing bowel we have and it worked PERFECTLY. The curved edges reflected the light (again, the stove-top lamp) so the EVA was lit from all the important angles and still cast a reflection in the water. Plus, it looks like it is being lit up by helicopter spotlights as it emerges from the ocean.

Photoshop cleanup was a breeze. Tweak the contrast, play around with the eyes for a more menacing look, save, and upload to Flickr, and thank Adam and Sarah again and again for being such great, great friends!

EXIF Data, EXIF Data, EXIF Data:

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	2 sec (2)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	55 mm
ISO Speed:	400
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV
Flash:	Flash did not fire

Orientation:	Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution:	72 dpi
Y-Resolution:	72 dpi
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Date and Time:	2007:12:25 20:38:36
YCbCr Positioning:	Co-Sited
Exposure Program:	Normal
Date and Time (Original):	2007:12:25 21:23:38
Date and Time (Digitized):	2007:12:25 21:23:38
Shutter Speed:	-65535/65536
Metering Mode:	Pattern
Color Space:	sRGB
Focal Plane X-Resolution:	4433.295 dpi
Focal Plane Y-Resolution:	4453.608 dpi
White Balance:	Manual
Compression:	JPEG
Image Width:	3888 pixels
Image Height:	2592 pixels

Be good,
-Dave

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