Monday, February 1, 2010

Glowing Apple


Glowing Apple
Originally uploaded by ebvImages
I was reading an article on photography when I ran across a photo of a "glowing" piece of fruit. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, so I gave it a try today.

The key to this is to hollow out part of the apple and place the flash behind it. This of course requires that you have an off camera flash and that you can trigger it remotely. I have a Canon 430 EX II, which is their mid-tier flash. I wish I had bought the 580 EX II, but that is another story.

A wireless flash system can be pretty expensive. You can easily spend hundreds of dollars for a good system. I ended up buying a cheap setup (under $30) on eBay. It is not 100% reliable, so I wouldn't want to use it if I were involved in a professional photo shoot, but for my purposes it works well enough.

I hollowed out the back of the apple, then placed my flash inside a clear plastic bag (to protect it) and inserted it into the opening in the apple. I played around with the aperture and shutter speed for a while until I found something that I liked.

Originally, I wasn't even looking for a reflection shot. I had the apple on a black tee-shirt sitting on the bed. When I moved it to the floor, I noticed the reflection on the first shot and liked it.

I want to do this again with some more fruit. This wasn't a bad first attempt, but I think there is definitely room for improvement. I had fun doing it, and I ate the subject when I was done. Can't do that on most of my photos.

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