Assignment '08- Light and Darkness- Due Whenever

johngpt · Nov 23, 2009

Pugs · Nov 23, 2009

Ian!

That is lovely! My god!

icassell · Nov 23, 2009

Thanks, Pugs

icassell · Nov 23, 2009

Oooooh...I blew it ... labelled it "Monument Valley", but it's Sedona .... OOOOOPS!

Pugs · Dec 2, 2009

So, this was this month's entry into my photo club's monthly photo challenge. The challenge this month was "Light on White".

For this, I borrowed a friend's lamp with a frosted glass shade. I placed this in front of a white muslin backdrop behind which was a 2x3 foot softbox attached to 375W Calumet Travelite. The softbox was at 1/2 power and the "studio" (aka my living room) was as dark as I could make it.

I just went through different shutter speeds and apertures trying to get detail in the lamp (and especially the frosted glass shade) but still blowing out the background completely.

I'm posting two versions (and feedback on which is preferred, is welcome).

The first is no post-processing other than a little cloning to remove wrinkles in the muslin.

The second has a little vignetting to give the impression that the lamp is casting light on backdrop (the backdrop was nearly completely blown out and didn't show any light from the lamp).

javier · Dec 2, 2009

johngpt · Dec 2, 2009

Pugs said:

I prefer the first version, that has the more pure white background. The vignette background just seems off-white/dirty, rather than adding to the composition. But of course, that could be just my monitor.

johngpt · Dec 2, 2009

Pugs · Dec 2, 2009

johngpt said:
I prefer the first version, that has the more pure white background. The vignette background just seems off-white/dirty, rather than adding to the composition. But of course, that could be just my monitor.

No... I'm really starting to agree with your assessment on this, John. My best friend (who is also a photographer) gave that same feedback earlier this evening and I'm really coming around to that line of thought...

johngpt said:

And, I really like this one for its simplicity, the repetition of the diamond shape in the windchime's paddle and its shadow. I really like the inversion; the top has the paddle being light against the dark background and the bottom has the paddles shadow as dark against a light background. VERY well executed.