A Monkey's Revenge - My Blog

Oct 16, 2011

The flipside

The flipside of photography is that it's all been done before. I was asked by my friend Joel Chant this week how many takes I had done to get the above result for The Telegraph. Well the truth is I shot around 10 images like this, but I achieved exactly the same result on each and every one. Impossible! Photoshop, obviously!  Well, no actually-just a trick for which I can take no personal credit as I nicked the idea from a photographer I respect and admire.

The answer is simple-this image was shot through a piece of picture glass on which the coin had been stuck with bluetack. It's an idea I 'borrowed' from that amazing ex-Guardian photographer Dennis Thorpe. I'm a great admirer of his work and also his unassuming manner,(thats spelt correctly-I've never seen his 'unassuming manor', although I have met and chatted to Dennis who is retired now).You can read more about him and his work here.

How come the movement blur on his hand? Well, I just asked Jim McCarthy,(Poundland CEO), to keep flipping his fingers and a slowish shutter speed gave a realistic effect of him flipping the coin.

But what did Dennis use the effect for? Well he photographed leeches on a sheet of glass, with the subject looking through the glass at them. The man is a genius!