I need to stay off my foot as much as I can, so aside from a few household chores, I’ve been a good girl. Still, I needed a photo for today, and the backyard was as good a place to shoot as any. This pear has been sitting our deck rail for a couple of weeks. I set it there to ripen and it’s looking pretty tasty. But the yellow against the redwood stain and the bokeh of the trees is rather pleasing, yes?
The birds appear to have beaten us to most of the pears, but our apple tree and grapevines are going gangbusters.
Busy – from before dawn until the time I went to bed. Didn’t even get to pull my camera from the bag. So, I have to pull something from another day.
I took this a couple of days ago . . . Nina farting around in the backyard, hoping to find a lizard under the roll of chicken wire.
And here is another one of the still life photos I shot the other night. I created shadow by holding a board above the light and using it to block light falling on the foreground. I like what the pepper is doing in the stem of the wine glass.
Practice, practice, practice!
UPDATE:
Set up for first two: Soft box to camera left at a 45º angle. About 5 feet in the air, angled down slightly. Reflector card to right of peppers.
Third shot: same but dropped soft box a couple of feet. You can see the change in direction.
Set up for wine glass shot: Moved soft box light so light reflected off backdrop through wine glass. White reflector card held above and to right of objects for fill.
White continuous backdrop (which is a window shade, $11 at Walmart) for all.
Also, I’ve started a Still Life gallery at SmugMug which will give you all the details on ISO, aperture and shutter speed.
Nothing I shot today was worth posting and I missed working with my lights, so when I got home tonight I set up one soft box and had some fun. There wasn’t a lot to choose from, but I found an onion and a partial head of garlic.
With the soft box alone – just to camera right.
I used my reflector to get rid of some of the back shadow. This next shot is the same set up but I used a gold reflector to put some fill light behind and along the top of the onion and garlic. I especially like the warmth it gives the onion.
This next one is with a white reflector to provide back-fill. Not as warm as the photo above.
Then I brought in a plate . . . light in same spot (camera right) with fill provided by white reflector.
I finally got tired of produce and shot this fan my wonderful mother-in-law got for me on one of her many trips abroad.
As mentioned in my previous post, our next lighting assignment is to recreate an Old Master’s still life. I picked Vincent Van Gogh’s “Still Life with Earthenware and Bottles.” Why, you ask? No fruit and no greenery (difficult to get at this time of year); not to mention that Van Gogh’s painting had items that bore some resemblance to items I actually had around the house.
The bottles were reasonably easy as we are a wine drinking household. I had a bowl similar to the one on the right, a clay vase like the one in the background and a small dutch oven similar to the one in the center. And who doesn’t have a wooden spoon? My only difficulty prop-wise was the two small white cups at the left, so I had to improvise. Challenges: my wine bottles are taller than those above, and my dutch oven is a bit smaller and a different color. No handles on my vase. (Yes, our names on it – as well as our wedding date – it was a gift from a friend when we got married).
My set up was a bit more squished than the one above as I shot it on two wooden t.v. trays.
Mostly I was looking to repeat the set up and the lighting. And the lighting was definitely a challenge. I shot many, many photos. Here’s the one that comes as close as I could get at this point.
I’m posting the photograph, followed by the photograph with a dry brush filter.
My version of "Still Life with Earthenware and Bottles" - Photo © Carissa Snedeker
My version of "Still Life with Earthenware and Bottles" - Photo with Dry Brush filter © Carissa Snedeker
Carissa Snedeker Photography 