Organic Objects

Background

Taking inspiration from the Object briefing, where a number of images containing natural and organic subjects from famous photographers were presented. Particular photographers that stood out for me were Edward Weston and Tina Modotti. Both capture or use organic images in very creative ways. Edward Weston was renowned for creating still life of simple vegetables that took on human form. Tina Modotti used organic forms along with other items to create simple but effective compositions symbolizing Mexican life in the 1920's. The other influence at the time of taking the photos for the assessment was Caravaggio the Baroque Artist who's used chiaroscuro to great effect.

Low Key set up.....

With all this in mind I chose a bowl of pinecones for the assessment piece. I thought this would lend itself very well to dark and highlighted imagery. As I wanted a greater control of the light I chose to shoot in the studio. The basic set up was for low-key shoot, so a black cloth was positioned on a product table. I started with one light at a time, first a studio light with a honeycomb attachment. This was positioned at roughly 45/45 degrees. The image above show the effect of this one light with a honeycomb light modifier. The hightlight to the right of the picture was too strong for the effect I was after, it also didn't light the left side of the composition enough. Dropping the intensity of the light and adding a further light aimed directly at the bowl from the camera position, but just skimming the left hand side corrected this. See the image below. Once I was happy with the light set up it was a case either zooming in on parts of the composition or arranging the cones in different positions.