Time for a classic

Years ago I experimented with custom bokeh. And I really liked it. I have to admit, I am not doing things like this very often, but occasionally.
And it is neat to know.

My blog post about this has gotten a good bit more than 1000 views by now. And I would like to re-share it here for those who have missed it, by now.

Custom Bokeh

And have you ever tried using this in video footage?

Check the original post for that footage.

Fine dining

Like two peas in a pod - or 3 forks on a board? Anyways, this is a tight fit.

Rubber Duckies

These two were certainly having a good chat about whatever rubber duckies chat about.

Spilling out

In a studio experiment I worked on water spills out of glasses. One other image of this experiment I did I already posted a few days ago. But I did not want to keep this one from you!

Water Magic

For my regular photocontest I had the topic as "Water as Object".

Lighting up

You hear so much talk about lighting gear. Expensive, a lot, new stuff all the time.
And then you gear down. All the way. 

This shot was taken in a dark room with a black background and lit with one small LED flash light only. I moved the light from behind the camera and washed over the camera. My husband then painted the notes into the air with the same flash light.

Radiant

While experimenting on lightpainting, this is what we created. A flash light behind the scull, and one that my husband painted the rays with - and light the face.

The sceleton of light

my photocontest challenged me to do lightpainting. And this is what I made of it.

blue berries in the dark

I photographed the blueberries not by themselves but in a white ceramic bowl to make them stand out from the background but still keep the dark and moody image effect.

This image is lit with the same snoot as before but not with a constant light on the left but with a large white reflector. This gave me a sharper light on the right and a softer, more even light on the left. 

Another fruit Image

For my contest I went through a variety of fruits and made the pomagrante a little more active by throwing the seeds down ontop of them.

The setup was about the same as for the apple image I showed yesterday. I removed the cross from the softbox and changed the position of the light a little.

Also the underground of the fruit is now a piece of background instead of the slate.

Fruit Images

For my regular photo challenge I lately had the topic of "fruit". I chose to go in the direction of dark and moody. Here is my contest image of this round.

I found this beauty in a Turkish supermarket in town, polished it up with a soft cloth and set it onto a stool ontop of a black slate platter. Then I buildt a snoot for one of my studio flashes by making a tube out of black cardboard. That is my main light from the right hand side that causes highlight and shadow on the apple.

I then set a softbox with a constant light to the camera left. I pulled two strings of cloth around the softbox, forming an X over it like a window with cross beams. That light is responsible for the catchlight on the left of the apple.
 
I had the black studio background pulled down and covering the floor so that there would not be light reflected around the room and that gave me the black background.

I had this image in my head, got my stuff together and made it happen. This is how I like my projects to flow. 

The leaf, by the way, I stole from an apple tree in our garden and placed it where I wanted it.

May I invite you

to a good cup of tea? Just the thing for the season.

James Bond Style

The end of a long night.

Cheers

Cheers, this is one of the samples of my contest photos.

Cocktails are served

Here is an image that I created for the contest I regularly take part in. 

My topic was glass and I won my round.

This image consits of two glasses stacked ontop of eachother to prevent shadow and create a subtle reflection. There is Aperol inside the glass, and slice of lime on the side. The flash is directed to the background - dark grey paper - and is covered off to the side of the glass to not create reflections. The fall off of light is due to the curved paper I used for flagging.

The lime was still very unattractive in the general one-light setup. We took a LED flashlight with 7 small points of light and directed it onto the lime from the back. The LED were somewhat blue and we used a strongly green flash gel.

The setup was therefore a two light setup: flash and flash light, one neutral, one gelled.

I liked the simple setup and liked the cleanliness of the shot. Of course that went along with a lot of glass polishing beforehand.

Forks

This is another experiment on the topic of cuttlery.

French Fries

I was experimenting with french frie forks a little.

Crossing Forks

This is another one of the photos I lately took for the contest. The topic was "cutlery".

Cuttlery

A studio picture I took lately.

OM-D Seminar

Wir waren in diesem Jahr zum zweiten Mal bei einem OM-D Seminar. In diesem Jahr waren wir im Loft 2 in Köln bei Eberhard Schuy. 

Nach der Einführung in die Kameratechnik der OM-D haben wir an drei Sets verschiedene Objekte fotografiert. Typisch für Fotografie by Schuy waren Klassiker aus seinen Büchern und Workshops mit von der Partie. Der drehende Stuhl zum Beispiel. Und Gläser und Flüssigkeiten.

Hier ist mein Ergebnis des "Glas und Wasser" Bildes.

Ich finde, es kann sich durchaus sehen lassen.