I’ve been playing with close up photography and off-camera lighting for 3 whole years now… where does time go exactly?

There have been many times I’ve gotten an awesome photograph and thought that I could share my set up for anyone interested, and every one of those times I broke down my set and put everything away, realized I’d forgotten to take a photo of the whole picture, and slapped myself firmly on the forehead while reciting Homer Simpson’s mantra.

Well this time I remembered to snap a few quick shots of my set up and I’d love to show you how I came up with this latest batch of fine art photography! These photos are basically the result of a Michael’s shopping spree. What can I say? – inspiration struck!

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These stones are super shiny meaning they are super reflective. I crumbled up two pieces of aluminum foil, uncrumbled them, and formed a dome over the top of my stones. I cut a hole in the front piece that was just big enough to squeeze my lens through. There was just a bit of space in between the foil on each side to allow the light into the dome. The lens of my camera did show up in the reflections so I did a few minutes of photoshop work to retouch them out.

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I’ve always had a fascination with water droplets and reflections, but water is far harder to manipulate than these clear bath beads I found at the craft store. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to photograph something that looked like a perfect droplet and came with none of the issues I’ve faced with water. I was able to play around with the reflections until I got the perfect combination of blurry flower backdrop and sharp, full reflections. My set up ended up looking like this.

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I did something similar here, only I filled up the tray with pink bath beads and went for a different angle. I also changed the lighting so that the light was bouncing off the ceiling instead of being directed at the flower. I call this one Black Swan Eggs and it is my favorite of this batch.

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Then, I just went crazy! I’d have to say this is the first abstract I’ve come out with that I’m really proud of. But is it still abstract if I tell you what it is? Eh, who cares it’s so kewl! I took dozens of shots moving the tray of beads up and down above the shimmery stones, not one of them came out the same. It was so much fun to just play around again… I’ll have to make time for another play date with light real soon!

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