Wow, this looks quite stunning with that black background. You certainly go to some length to compose your subject.
I hope this has not been seen by some of our fellow Challengers?... It might set them off again?... I thought they had been weened off the 'you-know-where'... vases?
Ummm... Victor... why is that rose out of focus? (... sorry, I could not resist the temptation to be a smart Ar_e, having read your reply...LOL) With the lens wide open the DOF is a little too shallow I expect... or perhaps the rose was leaning a little too far inwards? ... You will have to drop a hint to your daughter ... " a new tripod would be a great birthday present!"
Seriously though, this is a really nice composition both in 'continuity' with the curves of glass and wood and also in lighting and colour. Quite eye-catching. ~ Regards Melbob
I'm surprised nobody has yet commented on how out of focus the rose is. I didn't realize until after I'd shot that the front of the rose was so far out of focus. And this was handheld, because my tripod was busy holding the black shirts. So I had to open up the lens. -- Victor
Thanks, as always, for the explanations about how it was done, Victor. (Especially all the "high-tech" equipment had me smiling broadly!) :-) Well done. Regards jnconradie
The furniture is a set of outdoor furniture I got from Sears. The vase is sitting on the left armrest of the chair. The seat and right armrest are covered with black material. Lighting is by a single halogen light sitting on a stand made of Ikea candles and a paper towel roll. This allowed me to position it to backlight at just the right angle. Since the top of the armrest is curved, the vase is actually sitting on a broken shishkebab skewer, the very end of which, unfortunately, is visible. I did some removal of the black shirts in post. Interestingly, I tried boosting saturation just to see what would happen, but the colors were already saturated, so nothing changed, except on the armrest. In the version you see here there is no saturation adjustment.
Lightingwise, there was a bit of ambient room light as well, which was insufficient to light the front surface of the armrest (surface facing camera). I had to apply a significant levels adjustment to this area. That turned out to be much easier to do without looking fake than I expected.
-- Victor
Guest
22-Apr-2007 14:43
OK, I went on record in the challenge thread that Ikea vases are NOT furniture, but Victor found a way to thwart me. The wavy shape of the vase echoed in the shape of the armrest really makes this for me. Great light and color combinations. -Michael
