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Feb, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photograph at home, I don't have a fancy studio, and so I basically did what I could, with what I had available. A heavy curtain draped over three chairs and the vase placed in front on the floor on the second curtain !Time
This photograph was taken indoors, early afternoon, but here in Norway it's dark at that time, but this suited me fine for the lighting that I was aiming for.Lighting
I wanted to have a good contrast between the flowers and the background, I used a single flash and closed the curtains and side doors to reduce extra natural light.Equipment
Canon EOS 6D + 50mm 1,4 1/5 of a second f11 Canon Speedlite 480 II TripodInspiration
I have a friend in Indonesia who is always sending me photograph cards to inspire me, he sent me a set of flowers set against black backgrounds and I found it such a nice contrast that I wanted to do the same. It's another type of black & white.Editing
Yes. This was taken before I had started doing a photography degree and before I had learnt anything about setting white balances and using light metering. I used the automatic tone and contrast corrector in photoshop CS6. To enhance the softness of the petals I used a noise reduction on the whole image. Finally I performed a smart sharpen to emphasize the lines. The backdrop I used was a blue-black heavy velvet curtain, so I also reduced the brightness of just the backdrop to make it blacker.In my camera bag
My bag is so varied ! As I enjoy taking so many different styles and have so many different projects always happening my bag is quite heavy now so if I am going on holiday I take it all. Also I have equipment that stays in a home-made studio area, mainly flashes, macro lenses and tripods. If I'm going on a photowalk I will take just two or three lenses with me, my favorites are : 17-40mm 4 24-70mm 2,8 70-300mm 4-5,6 I don't always have a flash with me, or a full size tripod because I don't like carrying the extra weight. I always have a spare battery and a spare memory card !Feedback
This really is quite easy to do. It's not as frustrating as photographing children or animals. It's still life, so you can be very creative in the way you position the flowers. Play with the lighting, at the time I didn't have the knowledge I do now on lighting techniques. Mesure the light if you can and set a white balance. The flash was bounced off the ceiling, but I also tried with colored gels over the flash. You can be as creative as you like with this. I chose not to use a wide aperture because I wanted to have as much focus & sharpness on the flowers as possible. With the black background, having a bokeh in this situation will take focus away, so think f8 upwards.
