The North West Houston Photo Club has a print competition on the third Thursday of every month. The Assigned Competition for February was “Rocks.”
I developed two ideas for images that I wanted to enter. The first involved the Jewish custom of placing a small stone on the headstones of graves that they visit. The custom intrigued me so I wanted to see if I could locate a cemetery where I could try to capture an image to illustrate the custom. The other was a simple container of rocks photographed from above.
Rocks on Red: Again, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I needed a container for the rocks. My first thought was a saucer or plate, something flat and probably in black to contrast nicely with the rocks, which I originally envisioned as being a warm colored river stone. My first thought for the background was a gray raked sand but I didn’t have any gray sand and was not sure how I would be able to rake it if I did. I had planed a trip to Ikea to look for photographic subjects and decided that I would look there for a suitable background.
I saw this red rug and immediately liked it as a background for things other than the rocks. A similar rug was available in a warm tan which struck me as being reminisent of Oriental grasscloth or possibly even bamboo shades. I thought maybe that with a tan saucer and black rocks. But I couldn’t get away from the red that had originally caught my eye. Even though the colors were more Mediterranean or Latin American the texture still reminded me very much of grass cloth. If I couldn’t have raked sand I thought maybe the bright red with a black container would do. Ikea also sells rocks, not warm river stones, but a nice white that would contrast well with the black container. I found not a flat saucer, but a square, deep, bright red bowl with a black interior at Walmart. The photograph was coming together. It is not as important as the photograph of the rocks on the headstone but the bright red sells it pretty good.
I started out including the entire bowl and worked down to where I cropped into the bowl pretty severely. The finals choice was one about mid way because it showed a lot of the bright red rug for impact.
Again, the photograph got very complimentary comments but no ribbon. Never the less, I like the image and will probably put it in one of the four frames over my computer desk.
Nikon D200, 50mm f/1.4, f/16, 2 sec, EV +0.7, lit by one SB800 into 43” silver umbrella. PocketWizards to trigger camera and flash. The umbrella tilted at about 30 degrees was on a boom camera right with the edge actually touching the camera as I wanted the light to have a little direction but to wrap around the subject as much as possible. A 30x40 white foamcore reflector was leaning against the camera on the left
I developed two ideas for images that I wanted to enter. The first involved the Jewish custom of placing a small stone on the headstones of graves that they visit. The custom intrigued me so I wanted to see if I could locate a cemetery where I could try to capture an image to illustrate the custom. The other was a simple container of rocks photographed from above.
Rocks on Red: Again, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I needed a container for the rocks. My first thought was a saucer or plate, something flat and probably in black to contrast nicely with the rocks, which I originally envisioned as being a warm colored river stone. My first thought for the background was a gray raked sand but I didn’t have any gray sand and was not sure how I would be able to rake it if I did. I had planed a trip to Ikea to look for photographic subjects and decided that I would look there for a suitable background.
I saw this red rug and immediately liked it as a background for things other than the rocks. A similar rug was available in a warm tan which struck me as being reminisent of Oriental grasscloth or possibly even bamboo shades. I thought maybe that with a tan saucer and black rocks. But I couldn’t get away from the red that had originally caught my eye. Even though the colors were more Mediterranean or Latin American the texture still reminded me very much of grass cloth. If I couldn’t have raked sand I thought maybe the bright red with a black container would do. Ikea also sells rocks, not warm river stones, but a nice white that would contrast well with the black container. I found not a flat saucer, but a square, deep, bright red bowl with a black interior at Walmart. The photograph was coming together. It is not as important as the photograph of the rocks on the headstone but the bright red sells it pretty good.
I started out including the entire bowl and worked down to where I cropped into the bowl pretty severely. The finals choice was one about mid way because it showed a lot of the bright red rug for impact.
Again, the photograph got very complimentary comments but no ribbon. Never the less, I like the image and will probably put it in one of the four frames over my computer desk.
Nikon D200, 50mm f/1.4, f/16, 2 sec, EV +0.7, lit by one SB800 into 43” silver umbrella. PocketWizards to trigger camera and flash. The umbrella tilted at about 30 degrees was on a boom camera right with the edge actually touching the camera as I wanted the light to have a little direction but to wrap around the subject as much as possible. A 30x40 white foamcore reflector was leaning against the camera on the left
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