My Homemade Christmas Globe From My Uncle

This is a Christmas globe my Uncle made for me years ago, and I have

not put it up in a long time. He had a stroke, and a heart attack

about a year ago and has not left the hospital. I put it up this year

for him. I wanted to get a good shot of it, but I don't do too well

with light shots, much less at night. I think this has a neat effect

to it, but I would love to hear anyone's feedback on how to make this

a better shot. This one was shot without the flash, and there is

another shot of it in this folder with the flash. Your ideas would be

very helpful. Thanks.

I think it's very nice - it caught my eye. I wasn't initially sure what I was looking at - that's a positive. My only advice would be to encourage you to keep experimenting!

Here is a textbook example of what a flash does. It totally overpowered the light bulbs and ambient light which changed the whole look of the globe.

 

What a nice uncle. It doesn't sound hopeful but I wish him the best of luck!

May be you can have the best of both worlds by combining the shots with and without flash. I tried in PS to combine the images as layers and get the effect I like by adjusting the opacity of one layer. I did not do a very good job as the shots are not exactly the same size and there was camera movement in between shots. But, it should give you some idea what the combined image looks like.

I would also suggest that you continue to experiment. You could try playing with the exposure to lighten or darked the globe. This may create some lighting effects that might add to a photo like this. You might try zooming out and taking a photo of the globe in its surroundings. Taking a long exposure of the room with other decorations can also be interesting. I've also been told that if you use the smallest aperture you can (i.e.f22, f27, f32) with a long exposure, you can get a star effect from the lights. I havent ever tried this but have used a start fitler for similar effects.

 

Hope that helps, Tony

Lisa, the small version made me think this was a cell or something biological. It has a very natural looking shape and colors, the amount of light was the only clue that it was something else.

 

If you want to get even more abstract, you could blur it (radial blur might be fun) or take another shot with the focus at infinity. One reason I say that is that it is tough to shoot both fire and glass and retain the details. I imagine it would take some creative lighting to show the structure and fine detail of the globe.

 

I do like this one much better than the version with the flash. It really seemed to destroy all that is beautiful in this image.

Lisa, One of my sons blow glass and I have tried countless times to get it on film, but so far not so good. The comments of others' here have helped me a lot!

This is nice, I thought it was a jellyfish first look :-) This is definately the better of the two pics.