Metronome and shadow

ok this was inspired by Leslie Hancock's Honeydew shot on

www.photocritique.net. Except with a metronome.

 

It's been a while since I've done a still life and I did this one to

give as a housewarming gift to a friend. The metronome makes more

sense. I stopped by an antique store too look for ideas when I came

across this item.

 

Canon Elan IIe with 100/2 USM lens

1/125 sec with f/8

Shot on Kodak EPP

Used one light with grid from back-side to cast shadow and one light

with barndoors to illuminate the front.

 

I did some work on this with photoshop. I used a piece of fabric as

the backdrop and I wasn't happy with the amount of texture that

showed so I blurred it in photoshop. Also got rid of a hotspot in

the fabric. There was a lot of blue reflecting on the metronome and

I balanced that out as well. Other than sharpening and adding a

border that was it.

It looks like your camera focused on the cloth. the lettering on the metronome seems a bit soft. Something else to look at is that the brightest part of the image is right at the edge. the leading line of the shadow is sucked out at the right side of the image by the bright background. Perhaps if you had left a little more space to the right of the metronome and burned the edges to make it darker at the border of the print, this may help the issue. By taking the blue background and bringing it up in the back bou could have used a lower camera angle while maintainng the blue background.

I never trust the image on my screen to reproduce the original, so I can't say if its out of focus or not. If it is, then I thing that it would be distracting. Otherwise, I think this is a fine shot. I like the harshness of the shadows and highlights.

It may be a problem in the jpeg. I just dropped this off at my lab to get a digital c print made. In the full size file you can read the beat markings on the label clearly. Here's a closeup of that section if you are interested http://www.menegatos.com/photo/labeldetail.jpg

 

I was trying to go for a high angle on this to get a different perspective. I'm probably going to do some more experimenting with this.

 

Thanks for your comments. I'd love to hear more

My opinions are mine, and reflect more of myself than your image. I would have done it a little differently. While the shadow, highlight, and subject fill the frame well enough, I don't feel any emotion beyond that. The shadow is of little of interest except compositionally, alternatively, it could be separated from the subject, falling across an interesting surface. If the apex of the photo is in the yellow strip, then why don't we move in on that? Why should the metronome fall off the page, why not in my lap? I think that the essence of still life photography deserves inspection, and I am always happy to look at it, even though it is not the most favored style of ametures(sp) or even of pros in other fields. Tonight I see still life as either translating and transporting one setting to another; as a demonstration and exhibition of an object with flavor, or as a twist of subject or composition that holds the viewer attention and amuses him/her.

That said, I'd like to see some more! This was a critique, wasn't it? Good night.

Ineresting angle. Th JPEG compression seems to leave nasty artifacts

It is interesting.

Nice color balance. Maybe a little more shadow detail (jpeg loss?)

A really good, strong image. I had the same comment that others have posted regarding the softness and lack of detail. Presumably the original is much better. Post bigger images! A lot of people post little ones here. I always post a 1024x768 version so the "large" version does a decent job of rendering detail.

I have to hand it to you for this one. I'm not quite sure what it is about the metronome, but I like it. I'v been trying out a few shots of my own with mine, but yours blows away all my attempts. I love the long soft shadow and especially how it melts perfectly into the seamless backdrop(no bother that it was enhanced). The backdrop color is perfect(don't know why but I'm partial to blue).

 

I will say that it kinda hurt my artistic vision now - now that I know this exists, I have to change it up somehow, be unique :)

 

One question: How exactly was the scene lit? I'll assume it was a strobe, but I'm not quite sure about what you mean by "grid". Should I know what that means?

 

Oh well, It'll keep me thinking. Bravo on a job well done.

I used two flash heads. One was fitted with a grid. A honeycomb grid is a device that goes on the flash head and produces a more directional light. It's the oposite of diffusing through an umbrella or something like that.

 

Thanks for the comment :)

For me the blurred background softens the harshness of Time; and, while the image is pregnant with movement, you have frozen it just for the moment. Life's opposites are superbly represented, the image is alive with light/shadow, this way/that way, etc. Like a listing boat on the ocean except in this instance the vessel has a melodious voice. Well done!

a very interesting shot, I spent some time looking at this. I liked it overall, the soft powder blue gradient of light is wonderful, and the metronome itself is a great idea (shame about the compression but I noticed after uploading to this site, my images always look worse, perhaps it compresses them further). I particularly liked the way the shadow merged with the darker corners of bgrd on the left side, and the diagonal line of it. Had I taken this shot myself I would probably have moved the camera more round to the right of the metronome so that the face was more visible. Great piece of work though, keep going!

wonderful lighting,

For your effort to work as a professional.Because I think this one is a professional work.And thanks for commenting my images some time ago.

Lighting is gorgeous, and I love the color scheme and the moment you tripped the shutter. Probably my favorite in this folder.