I am determined to work on these compositional and lighting things from my course. I know I am learning, it’s just a question of whether I’m learning enough and getting it ‘right’ or not.

Today’s shot was one I thought of for yesterday but couldn’t execute because we had no cooking oil in the house (yep, that diet strikes again) so yesterday I compromised on the book with the pestle and mortar.

Today I hot-footed it down to the farm shop and bought some oil, then went to Trago for a glass jug to put it in for the shot – so, I spent £8.99 on a bottle of hemp oil (I know not strictly traditional for pesto but nonetheless a great LOCAL oil) and 49p on the glass jug. I must confess to rarely having spent money on props for my pics but these last few shots I have done so.

What I learned is that glass is a complete sod, especially when filled with oil because unless you spend hours (and indeed this took me 33 shots) you end up with reflections all over the glass. I’ve also learned that I need another light if I am to execute a shot like this any better.

One of the tricks I learned is when doing a still-life, use a long exposure then you can use mixed temperature lighting to dramatic effect – so yesterday’s shot had the background lit with a tungsten modelling light to give that soft warmth to the background. Today, I had to forgo the tungsten background (because I only have two working studio lights and the other had the soft box on it) for use of the modelling light through the oil and to give definition to the side of the pestle and mortar. So, the background is lit with flash and it’s lost its softness.

Actually though, I do like the fruits of my labours today – it’s a little recipe for pesto in a photo.

I’m still not sure about my compositions and whether they’re good enough, but I think I am definitely getting to grips with lighting.

Last year was the calm before the storm!