When thinking of ideas for this challenge, I didn't really want to do fruit as I assume it will be done by a lot of entries. I did a few shots with different objects, but never really liked them, until I did this orange juice shot. In my mind, the key to good black and white images is good texture, and this photo has plenty of that.
Setup for this shot included a large cutting board with all of the main props. I had cut one of the oranges wrong, so I had to put it back together with toothpicks and cut a different orange (oops!). The background is actually a couple kitchen towels draped over a piece of cardboard. Camera was setup on a tripod with wireless flash trigger connected. Flash was held in my hand, with a homemade snoot attached and a piece of white cloth diffusing the light.
Post processing (Aperture):
* Straighten and crop
* Increase exposure, recovery, black point, and brightness
* Increase contrast and definition
* Increase highlights with large high tonal width
* Increase shadows with small low tonal width
* Increase mid contrast
* Adjust levels
* Sharpen
* Black and White (R: 70%, G: 47%, B: -12%)
* Retouch/clone various reflections in the glass, sliced orange, and knife
* Polarize (multiply) the two orange on the right
* Export
* Unsharp mask and export for web (Pixelmator)
I really like the way this photo looked in color better than the B&W version:
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I like that you filled the camera frame with the subjects, not sure if B&W really works for this image. Also would have liked softer lighting for the oranges to bring out more texture
That knife is rather menacing! A good range of tones from black through to white, although I can't decide if the channel mix you have chosen altogether suits the oranges.
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