erm... mistakenly pressed enter!...
what I wanted to add:
interesting perspective!

Thank you all for your comments.

@Eduardo: I already did a serious cropping, but I guess it can always be improved...

@Chris: I liked the like going through the cracks, too.

@JIMJIM: peut-être une ombre, ou une tâche sur mon capteur que j'ai oublié d'enlever...

I think the crop works. It says exactly what it intends to say. Now is the egg cooked??

Philippe,
This is super and I knew it would be featured, but not before I got a chance to rate it. :>) Congratulations.

The only thing that would improve this image--in my very picky opinion honed from working for many years with even more picky art directors--would be to have better tonal separation at top center between the inside of the egg shell and the egg yolk. Im not talking about Photoshop...this would be very easy to accomplish when taking the photograph.

However, I only mention this because even great photographs can be improved...ask Ansel Adams or Richard Avedon. Advertising product photographers are simply used to looking for that kind of thing before hitting the shutter.

This is very well done.

@Ana: No, the egg is raw :O)
Actually, I wanted to take the shot at the moment of the breaking, but I missed it...

#King: this was made quickly, and just for WS, but I would be interested in having more details on tonal separation...
(Ansel Adams is not my cup of tea, but I love Avedon)

philippe,
This shot if delightful as it is. I would only mess with it because that is my style. I'll try to be brief, but that is so *painful* for me. :>)

In color (but not in b/w), having adjacent items of differing hue is usually adequate. In your egg photo, the color values of three things, it seems to me, seem to blend into one another at a couple of points..where the interior eggshell, in shadow, meets the table top(?) and where the eggshell meets the egg yolk. They don't match exactly, nor do they stand out from one another--as the interior eggshell separates nicely from the egg yolk where there is no shadow.

I will assume that you do not want to move the camera, the light or the eggshell (other than slighty).

Before I offer four possible solutions, you should know that I keep a number things handy when I shoot little photos (such as an egg) at home:
--Two or three sections of flat mirror of various sizes (up to 6"x12") with tape on the edges so I don't get cut and they are less like to chip. These are for reflecting extra light onto the subject, lightening shadows or creating highlights.
--Two or three bricks with duct tape all over them, so dust and ships from the brick don't get into my photo. These are for any purpose, but are very handy for holding the mirrors in position.
--Linotype (lead used for automatic type-setting machines), cut to different lengths and taped together. These are use either to lift things up by 1/8" increments, or hold things down (they are made of lead--heavy) to keep them in place.
--Some bee's wax or tacky putty to stick things in position--it is adjustable and easy to remove. A very small bit, for instance, can be put on the back or bottom of a small, round thing (like an egg) to keep it from rolling
--Lots of other little things that I won't mention, but that I found to be of use over years of doing this kind of thing.

Solution one: Possibly the easiest and could be very effective...block the light at top center in order to cast a little shadow into that area--that may be enough.
Solution two: brush some of the egg yolk at that point into the interior of the eggshell and into the shadow area.
Solution three: Lift the eggshell by about 1/8" at the position under discussion. You could slide an ice cream stick under there, for instance. This might give you a small amount of separation, but would work better if the light were coming more from the right, so the eggshell would cast a small shadow onto the egg yolk after being lifted.
Solution three: My favorite, but the most complicated. Use a mirror to bounce extra light into that area. I would attempt to put a highlight onto the shiney egg right where it meets the eggshell. That may not be difficult to do and would enhance the yolk--there is already a very small highlight right near there, so it would be easy to extend it.

Just some methods to think about that I used to employ a dozen times a day in my studio.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, King. Very interesting, Indeed. I did work with studio lights once in a while, but I lack of training, and I'm not very good at it. Usually, I'm quite happy with the results I get with natural light... :O)

philippe,
I *love* natural light and as I have no longer own any studio flash units, I use either natural light or a desk lamp or a painter's flood light...my wife's little Panasonic Lumix doesn't care. But the principles of manipulating the light are the same--adding and subtracting light.

Sometimes when using natural light (or my desk lamp), I will manipulate it as described earlier. The principles are the same, whether using natural or artificial light.

If you will excuse me for posting this link as part of this discussion, this was shot in direct sunlight in my back yard.

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/rust/response/124/

I diffused some of the sunlight with a piece of tissue paper (but the upper right corner is in direct sunlight). I propped a white card against my tripod in order to bounce some light back onto the darkest parts of the image, and I used a piece of scrap cardboard to cast a shadow into the upper left corner, which was too bright.

Yes, I remember this shot. Great job.

I suppose I should be more interventionist on reality. Usualy, I shoot things as they are...

philippe (as I am) seems to be more of the Steiglitz/Bresson bloodline... devotees of ambient light, seeking it out in the world around them, rather than photographers who want to spend days on giant set ups and control every bit of light.

To each his own.

SeekingFocus, (with all respect to philippe who is hosting this gabfest)

You seem not to understand. I, too, am of the Steiglitz/Bresson bloodline, but it is not necessary to dedicate oneself to either the matrilinear or patrilinear line.
My bloodline also includes Eduard Steichen and Yousef Karsh, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon (as mentioned above) and my cousins include people such as Annie Liebovitz, Helmut Newton, Francesco Scavullo and Victor Skrebneski--all masters of photography who could not have created some of their masterpieces without being exceptionally good at controlling light.

Knowing how to control light does not in any way mean that one does not value and appreciate, or is unable to *see* natural and/or ambient light. One of the great crossover photographers in this regard is also one of my heros, W. Eugene Smith, who manipulated everything possible in order to get photographs that expressed his point of view, e.g.,

http://www.geocities.com/minoltaphotographyw/williameugenesmith-1971-minamata.jpg

and, to use myself as an example of appreciating natural light,

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/pain-in-the-ass/featured/1/

Knowing how to control light, when possible and desirable, is simply a tool in the toolbox of the Compleat Photographer, in my humble opinion.

@SeekingFocus again...
How can you leap from my tiny suggestions of minimal manipution of the light falling on a broken egg to wanting "...to spend days on giant set ups and control every bit of light."?

That's pretty funny.

I pass my turn, I'm off for lunch...

:O)

@King,

You know I exaggerate. =)

I was simply contrasting the two extremes, though you are right in saying that it's best to walk a line somewhere in the middle. Knowing WHEN to manipulate light is key. Some photographers just tend to make that choice more often than others. I tend to make it quite rarely if ever. Not necessarily a strong point, but simply differing approaches. I can surely say I've missed a number of great shots because of this, and gotten some other mediocre ones when there was a bit more opportunity... but that's part of the magic of photography to me: capturing precious moments, rather than creating them.

...Of course, in a set-up shot (as this apparently was), the approach is quite different than being 'in the field'. So, perhaps more control is needed or warranted than shooting (for example) a street scene or a landscape.

I was just speaking from my side of the fence, I suppose.

@SeekingFocus...understood and acknowledged, my friend. The last word on the topic is yours, at least until philippe comes back from lunch or someone else wants to jump in.

I like working with lights, and set up stuff, tents, papers, flashes (see my latest post)... Didn't wanna do another melancholic in the edge sitting pic...

So it's either:
sort of good, lucky and rich, or
good patient and kind of rich too!
(ok you can hit me now guys)

ChriZ, please be specific about "(see my latest post)".

Thanks,

King

55 (whisky breaking... many things)
I had my fun, and I'm still learning...
This time I wasn't going for impact, but everything else,... well didn't quite turn out the way I thought ;)

philippe sorry for making commercials here!

@ChriZ...ah, now photograph a beautiful woman sipping from the broken glass...she spills whisky on one lip, the other she has cut on the class. There is a little blood. She doesn't know which to lick first, the whisky or the blood.

I'll do it! Please mail the glass to me as I can't afford to break any of my good glasses.

@Chriz,
P.S. - it's a good photograph, but now no one who reads this thread can rate it anonymously.

philippe seems to have left the room, so I don't think we are disturbing him.

Ok, I'm working on it!
So instead of me sending the glass, you could send me a girl! You wouldn't have to spend the extra money for the fragile stamp, so... ;)

I guess this will be my third and hardest image, connecting my first and second one, and that with not hurting... myself.

Ah I've been having loads of fun here lately...

@ChriZ...*all* of my models are fragile. Very fragile. Can't mail you one. Sorry.

Good night, folks. philippe--hope you enjoyed your lunch.

No problemo, guys. I'd love to see this image. Good noght , King. "See" you in two weeks. I"m off to Japan tonight...

night, nacht, notte, oya sumi nasaï...

Sorry I missed out on rating this one Phillipe. I would have given high marks and praise and had none of the great advice King just imparted. Very educational King, thanks for the pointers for all of us lurkers.

You know that if there are lots of comments who is at the helm, I wasn't disappointed.

No comment.

(is that like pleading the 5th??)