January 31, 2017

8220

Today marks the end of the first month of this project – 31 days down.  I think I feel a sense of accomplishment, though I know I left a few on the field (to borrow a football phrase).  There were certainly a few days that I didn’t stretch myself much creatively and that will be my goal for the next 28 as we pull through February.

For this day, I knew that I wanted to focus on low-key lighting and, while I could have set this up with flash, I once again turned to my trusty IKEA LED light as a compromise between time and concept.  We have this decorative acorn that we never really know what to do with (but that has interesting shape and color) and I figured this seemed like as good a use as any.

I ran at ISO 200 to try to reduce grain as much as possible and wanted to shoot wide open at f1.8.  You’ll see in the “behind-the-scenes” shot that I improvised quite a bit in this setup.  I alternated between a white piece of cardboard and a silver cap as reflectors to raise the shadow underneath, opposite the light.

Behind the scenes

50mm Canon Lighting Low key Object Photography Pinecone