Breaking Statues: A New Photography Trend?

What and why?

Breaking statues is exactly what it sounds like: you smash a statue and take a picture. Why would anyone want to do this? Well, there's a trick to it: capturing the statue as it breaks -- not the moment it hits the ground in pieces or the second before it touches the floor.

It sounds strange, but if you can pull it off, you can actually get some fascinating photos out of the flying pieces. Want to see what I'm talking about? Go check out some artists' works at:

Curious Photos and at

Nacho Photo

So this is popular, is it?

No, it's actually pretty uncommon. You can see why: let's say it takes you two or three tries to get a really good photo of breaking statues. The problem is that in the meantime you've, well, broken a few statues. And even if you're getting them second hand, that's got to start adding up after a while.

At the same time, though, it's interesting how diverse and unique the images appear. There's a certain amount of artistry in getting that timing exactly right -- capturing the statues' last moments of life, as it were.

The interesting thing? All of those breaking statues seem to tell a story, and do a better job of it than in their original forms. Remember, a statue is a piece of art and it's meant to communicate something, like a story. But the photographs of breaking statues seem to bring motion and drama to those tiny bits of porcelain and other materials.

Smashing things is fun!

It sounded strange at first, but I have to admit, there's a certain amount of appeal in smashing something into tiny pieces and claiming it's all for the sake of art. I just may have to give this breaking statues thing a try.