hey it's me Destin welcome back to
smarter every day I was recently in New
York at the YouTube creators summit and
I had a couple of extra hours at the
YouTube space there at Chelsea Market
before my flight I love art so I was
walking around checking out all the
vendors and stuff like that then I got
word that there was a really cool art
museum just a block away hey hey it's me
Destin I'm in New York at the Whitney
it's an art museum I love art museums
especially ones that start like this
let's go look at it one of my favorite
things about our museums are the
traveling exhibits and I totally scored
this time because Grant woods
American Gothic was here now I saw this
several years ago with my wife Tara in
Chicago but we totally didn't get it we
thought that the people in the painting
were a husband and wife but is actually
Grant Wood sister and his dentist and
it's supposed to be a farmer and his
daughter but we totally didn't know that
but now I have a better appreciation for
the piece do people do that all day long
do they really does it get old the cool
thing about this particular exhibit is
that it showed all of Grant's work
throughout his entire life from private
collections in the 20s you could see
that he was heavily influenced by his
visits to Europe you can see the
impressionist style but then later on
you can see where he was starting to be
influenced by Yann Van Eyck that's when
he sees these really sharp contrasts e
bold colors in this paintings from that
moment on he develops his own style and
you can see that throughout the rest of
his work in his career this is a
midnight ride of Paul Revere and it's
interesting because it was painted from
the perspective of a drone before the
word drones it's a neat perspective
this is edgerton i can say without a
doubt that this was the most influential
photo in my entire life I saw this photo
on the cover of a physics book when I
was in ninth grade and I said you know I
don't know what this is but I know that
it involves physics and it involves some
type of art and photography I've got
pain in fingernails by the way okay so I
think this is fascinating and this is
what made me want to get into high speed
photography so I did specifically high
speed video this is a big deal look I
know this is like this photos of the
museum but I don't think you understand
how big the deal my master's thesis my
adviser gave me this book it's a jurcins
electronic flash strobe I've read this
thing cover to cover the cool thing
about this particular copy that dr.
Frederic gave me it's signed by Edgerton
in 1981 the year I was born it's
fascinating the reason I love Edgerton
is he did incredible things with old
technology like he used film cameras to
take these photos it's amazing in my
early YouTube days I tried to take
photos of bullets hitting stuff long
story short I just realized I have
modern equipment and I've never
recreated some of these edgerton shots
no we're going to do an experiment here
to take a picture of a bullet very
high-velocity bullet as it cuts this
playing card in to the playing card will
be attached to this tape book coming out
of the gun at 2,800 feet per second we
aim it correctly it'll cut through the
card so it was edgerton's card shot that
made me think about high-speed video in
general but I've never done it so this
is my grandfather's thirty-aught-six
this means a lot to me there's a cracked
stock so I'm a little worried about that
there's a phantom b25 11 the reason this
is important is because we can get a
microsecond exposure time on it and then
the playing card the King of Diamonds is
the shot that meant the most to me but
we'll start with the key clubs just to
make sure we can figure it out
[Applause]
[Music]
we got a mirror pulse and some light up
there okay that was a 1.4 microsecond
exposure we're gonna go down to one
microsecond exposure and try to fake the
bullet I guess we can try to make the
bullet go on the front side of the card
we'll see
[Music]
okay so art speaks to people in
different ways when I saw the Edgerton
print of the bullet hitting the card I
realized that that was the piece of art
that inspired me to do high-speed
photography right but when I went and
looked at the exhibit by Grant Wood in
the beginning he was heavily influenced
by his travels in Europe and he was
trying to paint like them but gradually
he found his own style and he made it
his in my early days I saw what Edgerton
did and I tried to replicate it to a tee
like I shot bullets at glass eye I did
all kinds of stuff I eventually morphed
into something different and that's how
I expressed myself creatively on YouTube
and in fact I realized that I was a
copycat in the beginning because I
didn't have original ideas and things
like that and it wasn't until I just
matured a little bit maybe or got a
little more confident to try things for
me instead of to try to replicate people
I admire I think we all do this and the
art museum just spoke to me in a really
deep way so anyway that's weird I know
it's a weird video but who influences
you right are you where are you at in
the process are you still trying to
imitate others that you admire or have
you creatively
whether it be art technical things
things you enjoy are you to the point
where you're doing it for you I don't
know that's cool I just shot the Queen
of Hearts and it looks amazing but
before I show you that I want to say
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50 bucks off at checkout okay so I told
you I was going to show you the Queen of
Hearts shot this is amazing here we go
let's do it
[Music]
okay one of the added bonuses because
we're backlit with the Sun so you can
see the shockwave in the form of a
shadow grab on the card before guy cut
in half
to recap what we've done we had a naked
statue upside down suspended from the
ceiling
somehow that led to art which led to
photography which led to ballistics
which led to high-speed cameras which
led to me asking you if you wouldn't
mind subscribing the smarter every day
by clicking a button and maybe the
little Bell next to the button to be
notified when I upload anyway this is
what smarter every day is I hope you
enjoy it if not no big deal
I am Destin you're getting smarter every
day have a good one
oh yeah but it's so cool cuz YouTube
like I walked from YouTube which is
where I'm doing stuff creatively and
found my roots I don't know whatever bye