Friday 31 January 2014

Straight Out Of Camera Week 4 "Cake"

This weeks theme was chosen by Chris, and was "Ceramics/porcelain" I was late off the mark this week, but when Chris chose this one the first thing that popped into my head was "Porcelain Doll" I planned to use a little bit of make-up and turn my daughter Mia into a doll and have her sat amongst a group of other toys. But because of my Laz procrastination Chris was first off the mark with a similar idea and he nailed it.

For a day or two I toyed with the idea of sticking with my original concept. But after trying out a couple of different things I couldn't get it to work right and my model was less than cooperative :-)

So it got to Friday night, and I was sat engaging in the usual on-line banter with Mr lane, when I spotted something out the corner of my eye which led to this image. The Cake is ceramic so fits in the theme, and following some Britishisms on twitter it seemed only right to photograph it with a good old cup of "Rosy lee" (Tea) because after all, that's all us Brits drink ;-)


The setup was simple although it did pose some problems. I wanted to hit the items with soft light from my DIY softbox, but I also wanted to have a shallow depth of field to throw the background out of focus. Problem is, shooting with my aperture wide open to achieve this means the flash (even on its lowest setting) was far too bright.

This is a common problem for people using strobist techniques, and normally you put an ND filter on the camera to reduce the amount of light getting in, But I don't have one of those because they are pricey and I need my money for Beer bills ;-)

But I do have some ND Gels that came in the free pack I got from Lee Filters, so I used one of these directly on the flash to reduce its lowest power to really low. Even though this wasn't my original concept I'm still pleased with how it came out. And FYI it's coffee in the cup not tea :-D And yes I drank it afterwards!

Check out what the other guys produced in the links below, as usual some awesome work produced by these wronguns ;-)




9 comments:

  1. Great shot, you nailed it. Love your write up, funny and cheeky which is something of course we expect our of you.

    Wrongun

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    1. Thanks buddy. I I try to keep the write ups light hearted, more because it's easier to write like that than anything.

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  2. Anonymous1/31/2014

    Like it.
    I really like most the angle of the wood grain, running the length of the photo. I think you achieved what you wanted, with the cup of "tea" blurred out in the background. I love the softness of the light. Very nicely done.

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    1. Thanks Bruce, Yeah I twisted the table in the shot to use the grain of the wood and the fork as a leading points into the image. And the light from my softbox is awesome considering it cost pennies to make :-)

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  3. I hate your comment form, I put one in and lost it...
    You seem to have a problem with people "stealing" your ideas before you publish them. Or was that Eje?
    I'd like to see your outtakes of your porcelain doll shoot in another post, if you care to share them. This alternate shot turned out great though. I like how it fades into black in the background, and the DOF is perfect. Well done Pete.

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    1. Firstly, there is nothing wrong with my comment form, it's your fat fingers that are the issue ;-P I haven't got the out-takes mate because I'm very proficient at scrapping files that I'm not keeping. However I am definitely going to revisit the concept and I'll still do it SooC and let you see it.

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  4. WHOOOAAAAA, I posted in the future! It says 2/1 but it's still 1/31 here! Freaky

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  5. Anonymous2/01/2014

    The thing I like about this image is the dark negative space in the top and background of the image contrasted with the bright objects in the foreground.

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    1. Thanks Doug, I used a bit of black craft foam at the back of the table to ensure no stray light made it to the background.

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