this is a birthday candle stuck to a mirror. this is the second attempt. the first had multiple candles, but i liked the simpler version better. i used a 1/40th shutter speed to get the flash more as a fill light, and to get proper exposure on the flame - key i thought in this challenge.
550ex bounced of wall ( wall is blue )via ST-E2 at an angle such as to get the angled reflection in the mirror. i took some test shots to get exposire correct as the candle burned down. when it was almost gone i dribbled some water around it to cover up the defects in the mirror, and the wax that dripped on it from the previous attempts. this is about five seconds before it burned out.
shot in RAW - opened in RSP - adjust color temp & levels - some minor noise reduction here. saved as TIFF.
opened in PS6 - made a layer for cloning - cloned a couple blemishes inthe darker area. created a color balance adjustment layer to bring out the blue tones better.
i changed the shot settings to the proper ones - i had guessed what they were when i submitted it.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 160 Avg (all users): 7.1560 Avg (commenters): 8.5556 Avg (participants): 7.0957 Avg (non-participants): 7.2016 Views since voting: 15054 Views during voting: 527 Votes: 218 Comments: 71 Favorites: 29 (view)
well to explain the constant use of blue... i don't have much of a studio space - the room i generally use has bright blue walls - so they tend to be in a lot of my shots during the colder months.
i also like blue - and in visual arts - a blue BG tends to help make the subject POP off the page - so it isn't all coincidence.
my 'garbage' entry had the blue wall too - but i destaurated blue & cyan in that image ;}
I only voted on one image in this challenge, yours. Started to browse thumbs one day and this one caught my eye, gave it a nine and never had time to go back and vote for all of the others. Gave it a 9 and its cool to see it in blue. (good choice of color, haha)
Fantastic lighting effect on background/foreground. Subject situated perfectly imho.
I really like the flame and its reflection. Hope it scores up at the top. Good luck
Love the blue tones in this. And the theme of dying...reminds me for some reason of the death of King Arthur, when they row him out into the lake on the barge to take him to Avalon. Anyway, you got a 9 from me! :)
Wow!! I like this shot in so many ways!! Composition, balance between the dark and light sides, the reflection, the texture, the colors...
I hope this shot will be among the top 3!!!
A very minimilistic approach that works wonderfully. The main focus is the wick and the flame that appear to be adrift in a sea of blue with the darkness (the dark area in the upper 1/2 of the left hand side) threatening to extingush it. Lighting, composition, and subject are well captured.
Extinguishing
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