Ian Delaney on Hammersmithing
Ian Delaney explains Hammersmithing.
[tease]
I’ve also learned the marvellous expression ‘Hammersmithing’. Say you’ve got two photos of the same two people, taken moments after each other. In the first, the first guy has his eyes closed. In the second, the other guy is blinking. What do you do? Neither picture is usable as it is. The editor might ask you to ‘Hammersmith’ the two shots - which means take the open-eyed head from one photo and stick it on the neck of the closed-eye portrait in the other shot. End result - usable photo with everyone’s eyes open.
Why’s it called ‘Hammersmithing’? Because the first organ transplant operations were conducted at London’s Hammersmith Hospital. Maybe that’s common knowledge, but I didn’t know and I thought it was really cute.