These photos are all seen in the books on High-Speed Photography - It's not Rocket Science
A pellet travelling at 500 feet per second exits the muzzle of a .177 air pistol before impacting on a razer blade, being chopped in two by the impact. It was amazing to see how many pellets tumbled and ended up with portions cut off rather than being cut exactly in two.
It was commented that blowing a figurine's foot off was not very impressive. That was until the person making the comment was challenged to take a better photo. There's quite a lot of mathematics, physics and skill in this kind of photo. It's much less about photography and more about preparation and calculation - especially since it's possible only to get one shot at the figurine before it's destroyed.
This was a little more challenging than the figurine. This glass was tough and several pellets just bounced off before the right point was found to make the glass shatter. Airgun pellets are very light things and don't have enough power to break a lot of object d'art.
This was one of a series of party-popper photos. Out of a box of 12, this was probably the best image. One day it might be fun to put all 12 images together as a GIF to see a party popper in various stages of detonation.
This looks more spectacular than it actually was. By the time the pellet had passed through the 1st crayon it had lost so much power that it broke the second in two and bounced off the 3rd. This is probably the best photograph ever though as the pellet is clearly visible.
This was a lot harder than it looks. A card is very, very thin. Getting it centered before the gun barrel was essential. Slightly one way or the other and the pellet would miss. The pellet was a .177 which means it has a width or diameter of 4.4mm (.172 inch). In order to get the best effect, it has to be centered on the card. It did not help that the cards were not flat - they all had a minute amount of curvature that amounted to a couple of millimeters. This shot had to be done consequently with two airgun pellets in sequence. The first went half way through the card then got thrown off by the curvature. The second finished the card.
Somebody asked what this was and upon hearing it was a shot glass was rather cynical. It's a plastic shot glass from Party City filled with water and colored food dye. This was the first attempt and was left to the end of the photography session as predictably the area needed to dry out for a while. Water was used rather than tea in order to reduce the chances of cockroaches finding food and being attracted. Again, it's the .177 air pistol at work. After this the area was left for the water to evaporate before shooting resumed the next day.
