The wonders of indirect light
Dec/03/09 10:47 Filed in: Photo shoots
The art of photographing kitchen utensils.
If you are a photographer like me and you don't own a closet full of lighting equipment (and does not want even wan to own a closet full of lighting equipment), utilizing indirect light coming through any window in your house is absolutely fantastic for photographing... well,things. Have you ever seen those dreamy type flower portraits? The rose for example with the water drops on it, with the blossom being kind of underexposed and only partially visible? This mystic looking pile of coffee beans? If this is something you like, than indirect light is something for you.
Since I
decided to utilize the indirect light coming through
the back kitchen window, photographing kitchen
utensils seemed to be a good choice to start with....
In
the image here you can see the professional studio
setup. The sun is shining through the window and
partially onto the black, slightly reflective
countertop (what a b*tch that is to clean, I am
telling you). I positioned the camera straight in
fromt of the window, aiming at the countertop, using
it as an almost black backdrop. This gave me the
indirect light and also some direct sunrays. To avoid
glare on the countertop but still use those rays I
had to simply play a bit with viewing angle. The
subjects to be photographed were some stainless steel
spoons, forks and knives. And a whisk. So this makes
for the basic setting: silver colored, stainless
steel kitchen utensils on a black, somewhat reflecive
surface area as backdrop. Not too shabby, I would
think.
In case you don't have that shiny black surface, or want to photograph something standing up, you can play games here. You could use any old uni-colored cloth as a backdrop. Brown for sephia based iamges for example. Or grey, or red, for the more aggressive (or contrastful black and white) approach. And no, there is no need to spend a huge amount of money at B&H for professional backdrops - cheap cloth from Wal-Mart will do just fine.
Depending on how you want to capture the light on the subject, you'd have to pick the right time of day and your approach angle. I chose the early morning hours because that gave me a nice mixture of indirect light and those few sunrays I was talking about. But that of course depends on your window. Essentially I just placed the utensils on the countertop and started experimenting. I achieved some quite interesting shots (or so I find) by simply playing with the viewing angle and showing, how the sun fell onto the stainless steel utensils.
The key was to spot
meter with the built in meter of my Nikon D60 for the
highlights of the stainless steel and expose them so
there were no overexposed, burned out areas. After
that it was a matter of moving the utensil around and
waiting for the right amount of sun, so the overall
appearance of the image met my image I had in mind.
But I realized quickly that I really would need my
tripod. When you take a close look at the displayed
photographs, you will see that I have indeed a depth
of field (DOF) problem: for these iamges I wuold have
really liked the entire utensil to be in focus. But
at f/13 that was just not possible. At this setting I
was also already down at 1/60 exposure time. Which is
quite challenging for a handheld shot. Unfortunately,
my tripod is, as of today, still in some container
with the rest of my things on a boat on the Atlantic
Ocean. So I had to accept the limited depth of field.
I could call it for today "soft focused photographs".
Yea, that will do.
The images displayed here were taken in raw and developed using Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 with the suggested settings. No corrections on exposure or black values were made. This is due to the lousy monitor I have to use now, which is my 8 year old 15" not calibrated LCD. That was the only thing that fit in my suitcase, so I could have at least a temporary setup until my stuff arrives.
Go ahead and start experimenting behind those windows during the cold winter months. Let your fantasy cary you away. You will be surprised what amzing photographs you can create.
In case you don't have that shiny black surface, or want to photograph something standing up, you can play games here. You could use any old uni-colored cloth as a backdrop. Brown for sephia based iamges for example. Or grey, or red, for the more aggressive (or contrastful black and white) approach. And no, there is no need to spend a huge amount of money at B&H for professional backdrops - cheap cloth from Wal-Mart will do just fine.
Depending on how you want to capture the light on the subject, you'd have to pick the right time of day and your approach angle. I chose the early morning hours because that gave me a nice mixture of indirect light and those few sunrays I was talking about. But that of course depends on your window. Essentially I just placed the utensils on the countertop and started experimenting. I achieved some quite interesting shots (or so I find) by simply playing with the viewing angle and showing, how the sun fell onto the stainless steel utensils.
The images displayed here were taken in raw and developed using Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 with the suggested settings. No corrections on exposure or black values were made. This is due to the lousy monitor I have to use now, which is my 8 year old 15" not calibrated LCD. That was the only thing that fit in my suitcase, so I could have at least a temporary setup until my stuff arrives.
Go ahead and start experimenting behind those windows during the cold winter months. Let your fantasy cary you away. You will be surprised what amzing photographs you can create.
