City - Waterford State - WATERFORD Country - Ireland
About
My first studio shot in about 2 years. Its an eggcup, placed around 3 slate costers. I hooked up my D100 to the pc slot which makes it easy to play around with the settings. This was lit with a normal tungsten bedside lamp hand held about 4 feet away from the subject. F5.6 for low DOF, and made B&W through the channel mixer in PS. Black and white frame to finish. I hope to do more studio work next year.
Thanks for the loooooong response!! I really dont put as much thought into my work, not usually. This image was made as a result of cold turkey. My girlfriend and I recently bough and moved into a new house so I just didnt have the time to do anything photographic. One day while shopping I saw this eggcup and wanted to shoot it in as low a DOF as possible. So I literally threw together a mini studio as quick as I could, and I used the bedside lamp with some toilt tissure over the bulb to soften the light. If I wanted I could have spent hours at it and perfected it but I got fairly close to the image I wanted in a half hour or so (with the help of ps of course) - or in other words I got my fix! I have to say though - my believe is that the Nikon D100 is a bad studio camera. It brings to the fore very digital elements, you know when you see a picture and you instantly know its digital. I will play around a lot more in the new year and see what comes about but I will probably only get motivated when I find the right subject.
Your first studio shot in two years and you jump straight into the deep end, shooting metallic subjects... You are ambitious, that I will grant you. You pulled this off wonderfully, congradulations Shane.
I really like what you have done here, the simplicity is very impressive indeed (especially considering what you were working with) But there are a few little things which are bothering me. The first of which is the cropping; I think there should be just a little more room above your subject so that it looks a little more 'grounded' - it is only a personal thought, but I don't think there is anything to hide outside the frame. The next is something I am not 100% sure of; whether it is your lighting of simply the depth of field, the three rings of the base of the cup disappear in the right corner - like I said before, this is only a personal idea, and it may be that including the remainder of these rings destroys the image, but I'd like to see them, even if only just =). I think I have to agree with Louise on the framing; because your image is prodominantly white lines on a black background, having a frame which is the same, blends one into the other. Maybe just a slightly thinner white frame, and then the thicker black.
But with that said, I really do like this, you have hit a very stubborn nail right on the head. Photographing metallic subjects can be horrible, so I commend you Shane. I love the grainy effect here too.
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