Lessons from a Personal Photo Project – Strawberry Lesson
“You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes, you get what you need!” Rolling Stones
I am always trying new things for art, for practice or just to see if I can do it to add to my photo skill set. Yesterday I found (what I thought was) a beautiful looking strawberry and decided to see if I could create some art with it.
I was not successful in creating art.
I learned several things, so I consider the shoot a success!
Strawberry image after a little play in Adobe Photoshop to clean up some of the bruises that presented themselves as the shoot progressed.
Image created with Lumix GH4 and the 45mm Macro Elmerit Lens
I placed the light behind and camera left which created the highlight. The camera right side of the strawberry was lit with a reflection of my hand curved into a cup to wrap the light around the top of the fruit. (note the slightly warmer color because of the skin tone)
• When photographing food with a macro lens any, and I mean any imperfections will be revealed. Lesson learned for future – when photographing food, especially perishables examination of the object should be carried out with a magnifying glass. Even if you think you have the hero make sure there is plenty of other possibilities cause as the set heats up with lights the fruit will reveal more and more imperfections from picking, packaging and handling.
• In a low light situation, I learned that my hand could be used as a shaped reflector.
• Playing with the white balance on the camera and the Fiilex P100 (AKA the Brick) color adjustable LED light can lead to some very interesting different rendering of the subject.
I now have more information about photographing food in case that comes my way.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – As I was writing this post I think I may have found a way to process this strawberry into some art… Back to Photoshop for some more PLAY!
