Greg Koch Photography

As usual, this idea began with a drawing:

I’ve always been drawn to fish-out-of-water scenarios. It’s deeply meaningful, and funny, to me to combine two elements that wouldn’t normally go together. Plus, eating corn with a 36-volt cordless drill seems somehow appropriate, given my latent redneck tendencies.

Because this is a simple concept, I wanted a simple execution. There are no fancy lighting setups, no stupendous costumes. Just the wife and a good old ear of (non-organic) corn.

The thing about any photo project is that almost universally your original vision does not convey the problem you will face when executing on that vision. In this case, I quickly learned that the placement of the corn on the face can greatly affect the overall efficacy of the final image, as can be evidenced from this test shot.

Beyond the usual considerations of wardrobe and lighting design, character expression became quite important. Though the storyboard above called for a happy-go-lucky face, the idea just seemed more…manic to me. So we played around a bit until we found the (ahem) sweet spot.

This whole shoot, in fact, was made on the details. Eyes open or closed?

Two hands on the drill or one? Tongue or no tongue?

Eventually, we arrived at the proper combination of lighting, wardrobe, facial expression, drill placement, and set dressing.

Ear’s to a good day at work!