~ Maree ~'s photostream  

A last minute dash to finish The Assignment after a change of deadline! The brief was to try and capture mood and emotion using a range of techniques (light, mono conversion etc), and to interpret a song, album or movie title. I hope this has a dreamy feel to some extent - that was the aim of the blue light!

I used an off camera flash with a blue gel in a softbox high camera right, with a honeycombed bare flash to fill the center of the image with a warmer tone.

A year in pictures ~ Week 6 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

aka Panning the Parsnip

Another wonderful seasonal winter vegetable, parsnips abound through the coldest months of the year, and you just know that they're good and fresh because they look and feel great and you can store them for longer than at other times of the year. They speak earthyness to me, and it's not rare to see them in the most amazing convoluted and knobbly shapes. Whether you enjoy them roasted alongside other seasonal veg, or chopped into a warming casserole, they are one root crop that I associate very firmly with the hearty, wholesome fare of the season. Another favourite of mine is to team them with slightly tart cooking apples to make a memorable soup.

Apparently, the parsnip is even more laden with vitamins and minerals than its close relative the carrot - and has particularly high levels of potassium - so I'm guessing that it helps you see in all kinds of places :D

The colour of this vegetable is understated, and I wondered whether it might suit a soft image, with a pastel palette. I've been enjoying my experiments with photos that move away from the heavy dark backgrounds that I'd come to rely on, so I'm keen to keep pushing in that direction. Ever since the DSLR Skills course module on panning techniques, my great friend Sarah and I have often joked about panning various things, so I decided that I'd pay tribute to it by trying to 'pan the parsnip'. I created a background with pastel blue acrylic paints, interspersed with patches of darker blues and russets to pick out the browns in the parsnip, in the hope that as I panned, those colours would streak and soften in a pleasing manner. In the end I rather like the resulting hues, and the softness of the overall image, I can see it working as a printed image in the range, which ultimately is what I'm aiming to achieve.

ISO100 f3.2 @ 1/4s. The lighting for this one is relatively simple, a desk spot lamp lighting the background and parsnip body, an LED torch to highlight the top of subject (when I was setting it up I thought of it as a 'hair light' - I know that sounds crazy for a parsnip, but such is the way my mind works :P).

A year in pictures ~ Week 5 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

And so to the divisive veges. I know that kale isn't to everyone's taste, though my departed, beloved bunny Humphrey wouldn't have been able to understand that one little bit. Kale was his favourite by a long way, and he'd gobble it up as fast as he could, getting it securely into his belly before anyone had a chance to confiscate it. It is of course packed with healthy vitality, but I know that it wasn't my favourite to eat. That is, until I was out for lunch with a good friend, and we were served with the most delicious kale and horseradish soup. Ever since then I've been a convert - and I'm afraid that I love the soup so much that my kale doesn't get a look in elsewhere!

Photographically, I wanted to experiment with this vege and try to present it in an original way. It can be absolutely beautiful when it catches the light, and I thought it would be fun to play with it as though it really wasn't a veg at all. In my mind's eye I could visualise a necklace, or bracelet made out of the beautiful green leaves - like a natural sculpture or ruffle. I decided that it would be best teamed with purples and blues, so selected a ring for the mandatory nod to bokeh, and a deep purple Yves St Lauren nail varnish.

ISO100 f2.8 @ 1/50s. Softbox to camera top left, gelled speedlite onto white background through white brolly. Reflector camera right to fill shadows. Minor white balance adjustment to emphasise the blues, and unsharp mask on the parts of the image in sharp focus.

Welll.. they are ceremonial scissors that cut the ribbon at the launch of more than 400 ships at Port Brown's Shipyard - including the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth and the QE2. They are silver handled scissors used between 1899 and 1967.

Spent a fantastic day sheltering from the foul weather visiting the Glasgow Riverside Museum with the lovely Sarah and John - fun times indeed =) The place is packed with interest, but we were scuppered by the ban on tripods, so my ISO levels climbed to a nasty high, with resulting noise and low dof. In this case I wanted a shallow dof to throw the lights in the background into pools of bokeh, but I've lost some clarity on parts of the scissors.

Though it's hard to tell, the exhibit behind is a large model ship.

ISO400 f1.8 @1/100 sec. Handheld with available light.

A year in pictures ~ Week 4 of 52, Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables

My subject this week is such a colourful fruit, that I decided that it would have been unnecessary to subject it to any post processing warp, so instead I set out to capture its natural vibrance and energy. I had a concept based on the way we sometimes cut them open, and thought of the pieces flying apart in a kind of orange explosion. To simplify this and preserve the beauty of the cut surfaces, I opted for four large pieces and arranged them in a 3D scatter sculpture (I made that term up of course :D). I considered various backgrounds, but I kept coming back to blue, the complementary colour to orange. I also thought it would work to create a graduated backdrop, in my head at least it reminds me of the sky in the sunshine regions with which we associate these citrus fruits.

ISO100 f4 @1/50s. Flash on white background through blue gel & snoot, softbox camera left with reflector camera right to fill dark areas.

I've been aware in the last few weeks that the oranges that I've been getting have been absolutely at their best. They're one of those fruits that we get year-round these days, but the majority of times they are a little disappointing, either too dry or very tasteless. Those that are in the stores just now are juicy, sweet, tasty and best of all super-zangy (probably another made up word ;-). When you eat a good one, it's a blissful experience, and there's a relief associated with knowing that the memory of the last time you had one like it wasn't just a rose tinted nostalgia, but something to be repeated again and again at the right time of year. We all know the benefits of these wonderful fruits, so I'm not going to bore anyone with the list of vitamins, they're tasty enough in their own right to merit a place on everyone's fruit bowl, regardless of their healthy credentials.