Egg in the Raw

[Mike Buckley]

The challenges when making this photo were to ensure visual separation between the egg white and the tabletop and to display the difference in color between the thick part of the egg white nearest the yolk and the thin, clear part of the egg white that is beyond the thick part.

If you are not using a calibrated monitor and a browser that manages color really well, you may not be able to see those very fine nuances. Please click to display the image at a larger size to appreciate those details.

The egg white actually has thousands of tiny air bubbles. Sadly, you can't tell they are bubbles unless the full-size file is displayed at 100%; otherwise, they look like the tiniest of tiny dots that appear to be dust or imperfections in the tabletop. So, I digitally removed those air bubbles for artistic purposes.

Setup
The camera is mounted overhead on a boom. The tabletop is a thin piece of transparent glass suspended 5 1/2 inches above a sheet of glossy translucent white acrylic. A medium continuous-light lamp is underneath everything shining toward the subject and camera. A medium lamp above the egg on the bottom side and a reflector on the right side brighten those parts of the yolk and define its shape.

In theory, placing the egg directly on the acrylic rather than suspending it above would cause the edge of the egg white to be less defined. That's because the acrylic diffuses the light and the egg white is too close to the point of diffusion. I was skeptical that placing it just inches above the acrylic sheet (the diffusion material) would make a difference in the image, so I tried placing the egg on the acrylic. It's not just theory, folks; I lost all separation that defined the edge of the egg white. Similarly, the edges of the air bubbles that I left in the image were not sufficiently defined. I also lost the slight yellow tone of the thick part of the egg white, as it looked the same color as the rest of the egg white. All of those problems were solved by suspending the transparent tabletop above the acrylic sheet.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured, the division of tones shows through.

[John 2]

Nicely done Mike. Looking at it, I came to the conclusion that the bubbles you have caught are quite important to this but I can't explain why. Um...

[TonyW]

This is an image that is nice to look at but also raises technical questions of biology and physics. My monitor is calibrated and I can see the colour variations that you mention. I can also see colour variations in the thicker part of the yolk that don't seem to be caused by variation in thickness. I wonder whether the depth of colour in the yolk is caused only by the thickness or whether the composition is different. Also, how did the air bubbles get in there in the first place?

I have never understood the physics of the line where the fluid, hard surface and air meet in this context and other similar ones. Why does the fluid sometimes immediately move out to wet the whole surface and why does it stick like it does here. Perhaps people who have a fundamental understanding of surface physics can answer that.

It's a pity you can see the specular reflection of the overhead lights but I don't see any way of avoiding that. The family of angles is too large. This is a general problem with lighting shiny convex surfaces. Perhaps we should just accept this as an attractive feature in these instances.

And finally: How many eggs were there in the omelette at the end of all this?

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks everyone!

Now to attend to Eagle-Eye Tony's great observations. Tony, as to your scientific questions, heck if I know any of the answers! As to your observation of specular reflections of the overhead light, I'm reasonably confident that none exist. That's because I zapped them with a clone tool. Please let me know if I missed something...and good luck describing where they might be.

The one egg that was placed directly on the sheet of acrylic has been added to my omelets-to-be. The photo displayed above was made from the only egg suspended above the acrylic sheet. That one still resides in my makeshift studio, as I have another photo in mind before adding it to the omelets-to-be.

[flashback]

Nicely done Mike. Looking at it, I came to the conclusion that the bubbles you have caught are quite important to this but I can't explain why. Um...

Likely the air bubbles are an expression of the air (oxygen) that passes through the eggshell into the developing embryo (the shell is semipermeable, allowing the exchange of O2,CO2 and moisture). Had to go back to an Embryology text for a bit more info. It appears that on the polar ends of the yolk (that white ropey material) is the chalazae, essentially anchoring the yolk to opposite ends of the interior shell, suspending/supporting it within the albumen. And as a note, albumen is made up of a few layers of thin and thicker albumen (which is mostly water). So that additional third -clear- layer may be a separation of the albumen or it may in fact be the inner and outer membranes, which separate the albumen from the interior eggshell. There is an additional layer, the vitelline membrane that separates the yolk from the albumen, not sure where that ends up in the image, if at all. I hope this wasn't too eggsacting for this post.

[TonyW]

The reflection I was referring to is the patch of light in line with the polar axis at a latitude of about 60 degrees south.

After further though (i was going to say on further reflection), I could easily be wrong and that is actually something in the egg except there is a tiny bright light on the top left edge of that patch which looks like direct reflection.

I hope you did not take my comments as too much of a criticism of the image. That was not intended.

[Mike Buckley]

I hope this wasn't too eggsacting for this post.

It wasn't. But if it had been, it would also have been eggsasperating.

Seriously everyone, Jack referred to the albumen portion of the egg. It might be interesting to keep in mind that much if not most of 19th century photography up until about 1880 included the use of albumen-based glass negatives, glass positives and paper prints. I am not aware of any source of albumen other than eggs. Very cool, huh!

[Mike Buckley]

The reflection I was referring to is the patch of light in line with the polar axis at a latitude of about 60 degrees south.

If you think I understand those details about the location within the image, you vastly overestimate my capabilities; I have absolutely no idea what part of the image you are referring to. Please try me again...in lay terms this time!

I hope you did not take my comments as too much of a criticism of the image.

Not in the slightest. Just the opposite, I look forward to helpful critique. Any thoughts about direct reflections have the potential to be very helpful.

[Mike Buckley]

Is it possible that the air bubbles are introduced during the course of shaking the egg white while breaking the egg shell and dropping the interior parts of the egg onto the tabletop?

[JBW]

my visually calibrated monitor and Firefox show the distinctions quite nicely. Well done.

[JBW]

If you think I understand those details about the location within the image, you vastly overestimate my capabilities; I have absolutely no idea what part of the image you are referring to. Please try me again...in lay terms this time!

Careful Mike ' in lay terms ' is almost too good to ignore in this thread.

[george013]

I have never understood the physics of the line where the fluid, hard surface and air meet in this context and other similar ones. Why does the fluid sometimes immediately move out to wet the whole surface and why does it stick like it does here. Perhaps people who have a fundamental understanding of surface physics can answer that.

Food and less I think the living conditions of the chicken.

To me the food the chicken gets is what determines the taste of the egg. And the structure.

George

[Mike Buckley]

Careful Mike ' in lay terms ' is almost too good to ignore in this thread.

Uh oh. Please do ignore it, as it was entirely unintended, so much so that it didn't occur to me until you mentioned it.

[Mike Buckley]

To me the food the chicken gets is what determines the taste of the egg. And the structure.

I would always assume the chicken's eating patterns would affect the egg's taste but for whatever reason it never occurred to me that it would also affect the egg's structure. Even so, that information doesn't address Tony's questions about why the various parts of the structure behave the way they do when placed on a flat surface.

[george013]

I would always assume the chicken's eating patterns would affect the egg's taste but for whatever reason it never occurred to me that it would also affect the egg's structure. Even so, that information doesn't address Tony's questions about why the various parts of the structure behave the way they do when placed on a flat surface.

I thought the question was why it behaves different sometime.

Why does the fluid sometimes immediately move out to wet the whole surface and why does it stick like it does here.

Eggs from some big chicken farms can have the look of containing much water when you break them, others have a more compact structure. The york cab tell you also something. I prefer eggs from chickens that eat mais, deep red york and tasty. When an egg is laying for a long time in the same position, the york goes down. You will see that in the image when you break it. Or peeling when boiled.

George

[Wavelength]

lovely

[dem]

I have never understood the physics of the line where the fluid, hard surface and air meet in this context and other similar ones. Why does the fluid sometimes immediately move out to wet the whole surface and why does it stick like it does here.

In simple terms, it all depends on what molecules of the liquid like interacting with the most. If they interact strongly with each other but weakly with the surface, the droplet shape is close to spherical. However, if the liquid-surface interactions are stronger than the liquid-liquid interactions, then the droplet goes flat to maximise its contact area with the surface.

You might want to have a look at wetting and contact angle articles on Wiki and this tutorial from MIT. Note that they are all more applicable to small water droplets like morning dew than an egg as they completely ignore the effect of gravity on the shape of the droplet.

One important message to take home is that the shape of the droplet and the contact angle might not be uniquely defined for a given system but can depend on the history of this system. It is a bit like making sand castles - using the same amount of sand you can end up with all sorts of shapes depending on how you build the castle.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Mike Don't you think that a black BG would improve this shot ? White and yellow go very well with black and there would be no seperation problem .

[Mike Buckley]

Don't you think that a black BG would improve this shot ?

Not improve it. It would just make a very different image. People who prefer lots of pop will almost surely prefer an image with a black background. In fact, I'm almost done making one using a black background.

there would be no seperation problem

Keep in mind that a raw egg white is mostly transparent, not white. When photographing anything transparent, there is always the issue of defining the subject's edges.