Another simple mini-studio food shot. Again, after finishing serious work for the stock submission, I went to play with Lensbaby. Indeed, setting camera with Lensbaby on the tripod helps to get sharp image, and let’s me pay attention only on focusing (with camera in hand, I change my distance form the subject). I also used the tip I picked up recently (and cannot localize the link right now) to check if what I want is indeed as sharp as I hope by magnifying the image at the back of the camera to extremes. It worked quite well.

My father-in-low brought home yesterday a large package of fresh strawberries. Hmmm, what a smell. He washed them on the colander and left to drain. It just looked ready for photographing. I have a small studio set-up – a piece of white paper on the cabinet next to the window- ready for just such occasion. When I was done with standard, sharp all-in-focus shot, I took some with my Lensbaby for fun and for blog.

Another from my “found around the house” series. The regular potato doesn’t look like an exciting object to photograph, quite unlike to red potatoes, I suppose. I thought it my be an interesting challenge. The basket looked like a perfect prop for the shoot, I set up two speed lights, and started looking for a composition. I cannot resist using my Lensbaby, mostly because I have this macro kit with which I can get real close and personal. And it gave me my favorite shot of the afternoon.

I have a lonely tulip under the deck. This tulip also doesn’t look like it will present any flower this season. Out of desperation, I bought a pot of blooming tulips then. This old one was white when I bought him couple of years ago and before he was placed in the soil. The new set is red. More like between red and magenta? I am not sure. I spend almost a week, with Lensbaby and macro kit, photographing it from all distances and directions. Here is the gallery of the efforts.

I don’t think much description is needed for this image. As on Monday, I just looked for a subject around a house, and realized I never photographed salad. There was some left over in the fridge, so I arranged it on a plate and set the lights. I was for the first time quite successful with using a mirror and just one light on the other side, which surprised me. Well, of course I used Lensbaby, and two macro filters, and played with those effects.

With all the time on my hands this moths, I am trying my creativity. Which means finding in the house objects worth photographing and spending some time with them in the “studio”. I got some mixed effects so far, and the subjects are not that numerous. However, the afternoon spend with four glasses of water were successful. I was trying high and low angle, from the side and from the front of the row. I tried Lensbaby. And ended up with this as my favorite shot of the day.

We took a short walk around our neighborhood. Overnight, although it was not snowing, I think, the tress got covered in snow, so it was white not only on the ground, but also wherever you looked. Quite beautiful, indeed. This macro Lensbaby shot of the large snow flakes covered rope along snowmobile trail is my favorite of the day.
BTW, interesting tidbit in here, looks like yesterday all states but Hawaii were snow-covered.

The winter in Iowa keeps us well locked at home so far, with temperatures in single digits and wind chill below 0F. We took it as a great chance to work on some fun studio projects. It seems like last couple of weeks we hardly left our “finished basement” . Now, with two Nikon Speed lights, our food photography went on completely new level. We took some “strait” shots, and moved to some fun with macro filters on Lensbaby. I just love the results.

I guess it is high time to reveal the secret of the abstract photo from this post. Regine, you were very close, the picture shows a window. It was actually a row of keyhole shaped windows in the hall of African Mammals in American Museum of Natural History in New York. The tree like shape on the window comes from shades made from wicker, thus it might make you think of a tree.
Here is another view of the windows. I was photographing from dark inside of the room to the bright midday outside, thus the windows are only silhouettes, blurred in corners by Lensbaby (right again, Regine!).
Next post is number 400. Who would think….

This past weekend, my husband mainly, but me some as well, put a lot of work in organizing the galleries on my blog. We created a separate page, where all Monday Galleries can be browsed, and you can click on the image to open a gallery and view all the images in there. I am going to be adding new galleries I publish on the blog right there as well. He also did this wonderful changing header. Thanks!
On the occasion, I realized that I have some galleries in the folder which were not linked to blog posts, and decided to publish at least some of them. Today’s gallery was made last spring, in a Mexican restaurant in Cedar Rapids, where I went with a friend of mine, who was takings shots for a menu. When he was busy photographing his assignment, I was shooting from the side with my Lensbaby. I did some additional editing today, before publishing this gallery- after all, I learned some more about post-processing in last 9 months .