Photographer’s Notes First of all, I am a big fan of shallow depth of field. I love how the juxtaposition of blur and sharp can set off a subject, draw your eye, abstract a form. So this was a fun challenge for me. And I like red … my car is red; my motorcycle is red … red’s just great.
Second, I need to recognize the contribution of my WPL team to this. I originally shot the teapot, but it was a teammate that suggested steam, and another that suggested different lighting, and another … well you get the idea. So, thanks Long Shots! You make me better.
Third, I have often admired photos of smoke, and researched ways of doing it, always with a Speedlight or some form of artificial lighting. Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t own a flash, not even one that came on my camera (D3). But I got an SB-700 and an SB-900 for Christmas and this was the maiden voyage of the SB-700. I’m delighted (or lighted, I guess) with it and that’s what was crucial to capturing the ‘steam.’
‘Steam’ in this case is really smoke because no matter how much boiling water I poured into the teapot and no matter how cold the air was (down to freezing at least) real water vapor type steam was invisible. So I built a small fire of paper and matchsticks in the teapot. Made the smoke. Shot the photo. And then incurred the wrath of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. It’s a good thing I nailed the image I wanted because there Will Be No Repeats of the fire in my wife’s teapot.
Post Processing • Convert from Raw (PSCS5 Camera Raw)
• Reduce Noise (Neat Image)
• Enhance the Blur (PSCS5 Gaussian Blur - masked)
• Dodge & Burn (PSCS5 Overlay Layer)
• Brighten (PSCS5 Curves Layer)
• Crop (PSCS5)
• Resize (Perfect Resize)
• Sharpen (PSCS5 USM)
• Save for Web (PSCS5)
Post Challenge - Thanks to all for the votes, the comments, and the good wishes. Much Appreciated. And thanks to my WPL team, The Long Shots, for their review and suggestions before submission and for their encouragement to keep shooting and not be satisfied with 'good enough.' You're the best, guys!
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 123 Avg (all users): 7.1556 Avg (commenters): 8.4167 Avg (participants): 6.9667 Avg (non-participants): 7.3067 Views since voting: 5574 Views during voting: 308 Votes: 135 Comments: 53 Favorites: 11 (view)
First impression: Aw dang I have to critique an image that won a blue?! Find the crop a little off, not being quite a rectangle or a square, but that's fairly minor. I liked the quietness of the teapot and the smoke wisping up and curling around.
Artistic: Very simple shot and proof that the KISS principle is what works best. Looks shot at stove/table shot so not an extreme POV, but wonder what it might have looked like shot just a hair lower down and pointing up.
Technical: Already mentioned the crop seems a little wonky, but the DOF is indeed shallow and the way the smoke wafts back over the handle from the focal point of the spout makes a trail for the eye to follow. Nice studio lighting. Might have wanted to burn out a few of the spots of glare, but it doesn't seem to have hurt your score :-)
Overall: Personally I would have tried a few stops down just to see what the effect would have been, how much more of the pot would have come into focus. Also wondering what it would look like with a tighter and yes, square crop - there seems to be awful lot of negative space in the bottom right corner.
Pity your wife didn't appreciate your sacrificing a teapot for a shot, but just think, now you can use it just for making Lapsang Souchong!
It's refreshing to see that good photography is still rewarded. That shallow DOF is sublime. Well done on the teamwork. One thing though, did you seriously need to deNoise a shot from the legendary noiseless D3? hehe.
Congrats on the blue, Doc! And maybe try partly blocking up the spout to build up some smoke and use incense cones, they shouldn't get hot enough to cause any damage to the inside of a pot.
Congratulations :-) That was my favorite of the bunch, great lighting, and the softness works so well. A blue and 7+ score just for the WPL finals, nice timing! Also, I feel the pain about the fire in the wife's teapot, reminds me some of my "home discussions" ;-)
Teapot Study #37
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