This week, Friday Flowers is the subject of the photography course I am taking ,
Frugal Still Life Photography
from photographer Cheryl McCain.
How I arrived in this course is another example of the power of social media and staying connected. I learned about it, by chance, from my on-line friend Nina who mentioned it on Instagram. How do I know Nina? I’m pretty sure it was from another great course, Blogging Your Way. One thing leads to another with social media which is what pleases me and keeps me connected!
Cheryl states that included in the course is:
8 separate segments of the workshop where I share a different Still Life image and share my techniques on creating the image, including pull-back shots of the setup prior to shooting
and
My goal is to show you how to create lovely images without spending an arm and a leg to do so.
We’re now in Week #2 and this week it’s all about cropping and space. Although flowers were certainly not the required subject, I had just bought this wonderful bunch of yellow tulips (my favorite flower) and with the brown paper, they seemed the perfect choice.
ISO 800 f/8 1/13sec.
Above, in my first image, I left the space wide open. I didn’t’ crop either with the camera or on the computer. I put a large sheet of white paper underneath the bouquet and another propped up behind, all on a chair (pull back shot is down below). I don’t ever shoot on a white background, so this was new territory to me.
Then I tried moving in:
ISO 800 f/8 1/15
Moving in a little more:
ISO 800 f/8 1/15
And again, an even closer crop:
ISO 800 f/8 1/6
Once again, with shallower depth of field:
ISO f/2.2 1/40
Finally, to finish off the lesson, I chose my favorite which was also taken from a totally different angle. I cropped out some white space on the right for a better 3-3-3 ratio and then started applying textures from Kim Klassen. Wow. I recently discovered her site and have been studying her “Texture Tutorials”.
Here I used, first, KK-oro and then she loves you. Now that I’ve learned about blending modes and masks I’m good to go! For those of you who know these things, well, it’s just so much fun to play around, no?
For those of you in the course: here is the “pull back” shot showing all the equipment I used.
Taken with my iPad, so don’t have stats!
I just love trying these new techniques and playing around with the camera. Oh, I use a Canon Rebel T3 EOS, and the lens for these was a 50mm.
