Ninja at home

So, my boys decided to create “Sugar Glass”, you know, the material that is used on movie sets to crash over the actors heads, or in the old cowboy Western’s, the window that was broken as the villain get kicked out of the saloon. This is all the rage apparently with 8 and 10 year old boys….as this is all they spoke about for a week.

Now, if you don’t know my boys, they are actual Ninjas….honest to God, actual living and breathing NINJAS! The actual spinning, flying, grunting and cussin little buggers who are 2 stripe tests away from earning their brown belts…(one belt away from BLACK)……so you can probably see where this little story is headed.

I digress….....so anyways, they mixed the concoction up in the bowl and then cooked it in a 9x9 cake tin. It turned into a rather large Ricola cough drop looking thingy, about half an inch thick and sticky as hell….but it was transparent for the most part.  We left it in the fridge overnight to harden….as the boys went to bed for the night, smiling and planning on the next days adventures, and how to break the glass.

Sunday morning was like Christmas to them as I apparently overslept for the grand breaking ceremony. I was pulled from my somewhat comfy bed with the demands of Blaze to "grab my camera and shoot this thing"…………Y A W N!

I told him to go to the garage and retrieve the black backdrop, stands, beauty dish and a kicker light for the background. We took a 4x8 foamcore sheet and tried our best to block the sun streaming through the front door, as total darkness what my ultimate goal. This didn’t really work out as planned, but I proceeded to attempt the shot anyway.

We took a simple tripod and Blaze gaff taped a normal spring clamp to it, to hold the glass in place. This stuff was as sticky as molasses I tell ya.

It was very important for the two

of us to get our timing down, we only had the one chance to nail the shot and I was already up……..I counted him down at least 10 times until I felt we were in sync. When he finally got consistent in his throwing of the punches and his screams were at the optimal NINJA volume, we decided to go for it!

One more test of the flash was necessary to make sure the lights were firing…they didn’t?  The cable release had fallen out,….phew….quick fix.

3………..2………..1………POP!!!!!!.......then a second later the shattering echoed throughout the living room……….it was over….DONE!

Chimping on the back of the camera was almost as glorious as seeing my Space Shuttle remotes for the first time….we had done it….Perfection on one take.

He laughed as we ate the glass that was still stuck to the tripod………….not a bad days work.

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