Book of Wishes
Apr, 2018Views
2411
Likes
Awards
Top Shot Award 22
Judge Favorite
Community Choice Award
Contest Finalist in Creative Compositions Photo Contest Vol6
Contest Finalist in Monthly Pro Photo Contest Vol 41
Staff Favorite
Peer Award
Outstanding Creativity
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
All Star
Magnificent Capture
Virtuoso
Superior Skill
Genius
Emotions
Impressed
Happy
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rank
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on my study/photography room. It was a bit of an experimental photoshoot to capture bokeh in the background with fairylights. I was quite please with the results with a few of the different still life set-ups I used.Time
I haven't played around with my inside still life set-ups for a while and a rainy afternoon created the perfect day. With the rain outside and a bit of chill-out music playing I let my creativeness evolve through the afternoon.Lighting
I set this up by a large window that created the diffused lighting to the left and I placed lighting on the right side of the image too to get the extra contrast. In the background I had some fairy lights hanging from the skeleton of a styrofoam box, this was placed about half a metre behind the book to create that soft bokeh effect.Equipment
I love my Nikon D7200 and my Nikon 60mm AF-S Micro lens is my favourite lens to capture my still life images. I always use a tripod to capture these kind of set-ups so I always have the same main composition. I then play around with f/stops to get the right focus and tweak the composition to get the right lines in the frame as well.Inspiration
I was hoping to create a magical/fairytale type image and to do a bit of experimentation with fairylights in the background to create bokeh. It took a little while to get the bokeh just right and to set up the fairylights in the skeleton of the styrofoam box. I placed a sheet of clear thick plastic which ended up diffusing the fairylights nicely.Editing
I didn't do much post-processing at all except converting it to black and white, tweaking the contrast and burning around the edges.In my camera bag
When I take still-life photo's my 'go-to' set up consists of my trusty Nikon D7200 and Macro Lens. It just works! Of course there is alot of trying this and trying that with artificial light positions and composition - but that's the challenge and fun of it all. It takes time to get 'the shot', the image you see in your mind, and over the years I've found that sometimes simple is often better. Experiment, take time and create.Feedback
Sometimes you need time in your creative mind for things to mesh and evolve. How are you going to get this image, what lighting do you need, what subject will you use, what shutterspeed will you need, what time of day would be best, do I have enough time, how else can I get more creative with this image? With my last still-life shoot, I decided to do the setting up of my composition one afternoon and do the photoshoot a couple of days afterwards. This allowed my creative mind to think of all of these other compositions or 'takes' of the same idea. I was able to get more 'keepers' and found I actually had a series of reasonable images along the same theme.
