Although I don't think this image is necessarily spectacular, I have to confess I'm expecting it to at least get above 6. At this time of the year + the nasty weather we had this week, I found it impossible to get any sort of outside nature shot. I also sort of wanted to challenge myself with an interior attempt at his challenge topic & to do so with (what I thought was!) a novel approach.
This was actually a somewhat difficult shot to achieve, here are the details:
A black baking pan turned upside down with about 6 ounces of water poured on top of it. The pan was obviously a little bent, so it held a shallow pool of water quite nicely. I placed a white marble in the deepest section of that pool, positioned my camera & then proceeded to light the scene which really turned out to be the difficult part here. Because of the highly reflective marble face, I found it quite hard to fire my strobes without getting a concave, mirror like view of the entire room (I shot this at night, btw, so there was no ambient light to work with). The lighting scenario ultimately ended up being a single tungsten lamp next to the far rear wall and a single strobe bounced into an umbrella and then through a large suspended piece of ripstop nylon with a medium round diffuser serving as a reflector for fill above & to the left.
To me, this shot was about trying to conquer the issues that a photographer faces when trying to shoot highly reflective surfaces. But I also like the abstract nature of the shot itself. I find it neat the way the crispness of the marble surface stands out against the soft, buttery smooth background. The forms, textures & lighting are quite pleasing to me...
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... but apparently not to too many others... Ah, well - at least I met my minimum goal.
Here's the color version:
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First impressions: I like the simplistic feel of the image. The border works well with the image.
Composition: The object is placed nicely off center and the shadows form a curve leading the eye through the image. However I can't help feeling that it should be sharper.
Lighting: Subtle. This works well with the simple composition.
Impact: I think the image is a bit flat and could use a boost in contrast. To me, the colour version has much more impact. But I'm partial to warm tones.
Good shot at a difficult subject. I would have liked to see the whole marble in the reflection. Thank you for the lighting info, which may help me someday with a difficult shot.
This is a reflection in a reflection in a reflection. Out of curiosity, I wouldn't mind seing the reflection of you in the egg and the eggs reflection a little better. But a very very nice shot!!
Overly portentous title, perhaps: I'm never sure what really works, though. I like the subtlety of your use of reflections here, and the multiple meanings. Something of a cold fish, in the end, for my real taste, which is why this isn't quite my favourite of the bunch this time round. Not quite.
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