If "good artists borrow, great artists steal"—I just made that up by the way—then for this week's Shooting Challenge, I want you to steal. And steal shamelessly.
The Challenge
Choose an iconic photograph of any era or style and do your best to completely duplicate it, like our lead photo by Mike Stimpson stole from the original Dali Atomicus by Philippe Halsman...
...who in fact stole from Salvador Dalí's Leda Atomica [quasi NSFW link to photo] (and stole pretty well, as both Dalí and his painting appear in Halsman's photo!).
The Method
There are just too many possibilities to cover here in terms of method, but I will say that there are three pretty obvious directions you can go:
1. You duplicate the photo as earnestly as possible, matching its tone or particular draw as authentically as you can (the most noble route, and I hope a lot of people go this way).
2. You can duplicate the photo with a few elements swapped out for others or even updated for the modern era (most likely, what many without costume and prop budgets will need to do).
3. Or you can try to simply go for a parody (which is kind of like option 2 but soaked in hyperbole).
I'm not looking to limit your inspiration here, so know that all of these submissions are fine by me. I just ask that you push yourselves technically and creatively to get a great stolen shot.
The Rules - READ THESE
1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos must be taken since this contest was announced.
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings, technique and story behind shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com, not me.
5. Include 800px wide image (200KB or less) AND a 2560x1600 sized in email. (The 800px image is the one judged, so feel free to crop/alter the larger image for wallpaper-sized dimensions.)
6. One submission per person.
7. Use the proper SUBJECT line in your email (more info on that below)
Send your best photo by Monday, November 15th at 8AM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with "Steal" in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastnameSteal.jpg (800px wide) and FirstnameLastnameStealWallpaper.jpg (2560px wide) naming conventions. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email along with a story of the shot in a few sentences ALONG WITH A LINK TO THE ORIGINAL PHOTO. And don't skip this story part because it's often the most enjoyable part for us all beyond the shot itself!
When I'm not running Shooting Challenges, I'm curating my new site, Life, Panoramic. Also, I tend to eat, sleep and watch TV a lot.