Self-critic Still-life

[Frank Schmidt]

Here's one that I'm not finished with.

Spent several hours at the Nelson Atkins art museum in Kansas City this past weekend looking at the Dutch masters work of still-lifes 1600's and 1700's.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art | Kansas City, Missouri



Here's my first composition since that outing. Canon 60D, in a totally dark room, f/22, 85 seconds exposure, ISO 125, with a 50 mm lens.

No flash used. I used a spot light, here's how.

Turn off lights, open camera shutter with lamp turned on, after 4 seconds, unplug light, step in front of camera and light oil lamp, step back and count to '4' and then blow out the lamp wick.

Now apply spot light for a while on the different elements and then step behind the scene and spot the oil lamp from above.

My complaints : which I will correct later tonight and then post a finished lightpainted picture:

I don't like the bunched up fabric foreground right in front of the oil lamp.

The draped fabric ought to be darker so the elements in front of it stand out more but I like the richness of fabric.

The tea infuser is not clear enough, maybe a tea bag would look better, the tassel on the bookmark is not clear and I ought to lose it or re-position it, Are the glasses right? Try in different positons.

The tea cup ought to be fuller to show tea better. Maybe a little more light background behind lamp would be better.

Having said all that ; I'll give it another go and see what happens.

See more of my work at: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/frank-schmidt.html


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[Frank Schmidt]

Here's my 'better ' photo image.
An improvement, I think. All EXIF data the same except: 102 seconds on exposure. Some elements have too much light here.

Will continue to work on this image and hope to do better, maybe a little darker or more moody (romantic ?) would be better.


See more at:

FrankSchmidt | RedBubble

[caney2011]

Frank, when you move the spot light from one item to the next do you turn it off then back on? I have never tried this type of photography. I think I would like to spend some time with my daughter setting something like this up. Keep the information coming, I'll read up and when I get home from deployment I will see if she is interested in trying this with me. Thanks for your post!!! Mike

[Frank Schmidt]

No Mike,

I don't turn the spotlight off when moving it from one element in the image to the next. You have to think about shadows cast by the light and how that is recorded by the camera. With the lights off you can move from one side of the scene to the other , walk in front of the camera lens, and your image will not record or blur on the sensor (if you don't have any lights bouncing around). That is so different from using flash photography.

The tighter aperature and lower ISO setting, the more time you have to light the scene and stronger flashlight is needed.

Have fun !