I'm sure I'm not alone in this group as a bit of a gadget junkie and I enjoy electronic tools like computers, cameras, music players, home theatre, etc. I was able to combine some of the electronic tools I like for this one to provide an implied metaphor about tech addiction (21 Grams is the name of a movie where the title is a reference to drugs). I used my digital kitchen scales (accurate to the gram) to weigh the two CF cards I use as backups to the main CF card I use for my 7D. The combined weight of the cards is actually 20 grams, so I added a tiny bit of Blu-Tack office putty to connect the two CF cards together for added stability and to provide the extra gram of weight needed to make this idea work. My choice of the 2GB and 1GB CF cards and their placement here was quite deliberate to mirror the 21 readout on the scales to imply not just their weight, but also their value, which is important data for us tech addicts to know. ;^)
I achieved the high key effect largely by the combined use of the camera's inbuilt flash and a slave flashgun with softbox from the left more or less edge on to the CF cards. I positioned some white card in a bit of an arc behind to reflect the light back to kill more shadows/blow more highlights and did some simple tidying up in Photoshop to complete the job. The lighting sources, being at quite an angle to the cards and scales readout/front area, provided a more natural exposure of those elements to contrast with the high key remainder of the image.
