One of the hazards of having photography as a hobby is that sooner or later, you will run out of family and friends who are prepared to humor your endeavors at taking character portraits of them. Considering you only require them to sit at a designated spot, in front of a couple of strobes, holding that half-smile/ half-stare look for just over an hour while you fumble about your aperture and shutter speed, it confuses many a new photography as to what the big deal is, really.
For the first couple of months, there is the novelty factor of having one’s photograph being taken. And the look of the new DSLR and the hi-tech strobes guarantees full cooperation for a few more weeks. In fact, once you’ve put up some of your really good images around the house, your work occasionally even finds mention at home gatherings – ‘never knew you had such a keen eye, Rishi!’
But after the first month or so, the novelty rubs off. The camera becomes an annoying toy, and the strobes are the ‘crap’ that the wife doesn’t know where to shelve. Still, you’re put up with, thinking the entire thing is just a phase that you’ll grow out of – ‘perhaps, next, he’ll take up gardening’. Gradually, though, realization dawns that the obsession runs deeper than earlier diagnosed. Finally, there comes a juncture when the entire thing just becomes a bit too much for all around.
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Example:
Thud!
Wife: ‘Darling, I fell down!’
You: ‘Whoa! Hold that pose darling! That would look awesome as an environmental portrait on flickr! It’s sure to win the Nuclear Rose Award– Post 1 Comment 7!’
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I will not detail out the ramifications of such an incident. Suffice to say that apart from photography, if you have some cooking skills as well, it will make the next few days a lot less uncomfortable. There’s something to be said about sleeping in the bathroom in an empty stomach.
Enter Tabletop Photography!
Shunned by humanity (and wildlife being a few kilometers away), the next usual suspects for your fixation are of course whatever else is lying around the house. The lamp, the flower pot, the fruit-bowl…things can only get better from here. Apart from incidents similar to the one detailed above, the only thing that can force you to divert your photographic skills to things like these is sheer laziness. Still, smart people in photography have devised a name for this kind of thing, to take away some of the taboo out of being a lazy bum. It’s called tabletop photography!
I took this image at a similar crest in my photographic career. It is not original. In fact, it is so cliché that even calling it a cliché is a cliché (forgive me if I sound delirious; I’m not much of a cook). It is an image that you’d see in most stock photography sites. But it is one that any person learning photography would like to have an own version of. It is the standard kitchen-equipment shot.
The background is a black piece of cloth; think it was the wife’s scarf (she was away, of course). The knife is standard kitchen issue. And the tomato has been specially imported for this session from the star-system Lycopersicon esculentum.
The camera was set at ISO 100, 1/200s and f/14. I wanted a dark background, so it was important that I minimize the amount of light that would spill over to the background. Hence, the shutter speed of 1/200s (anything more than this, and my camera would have stopped being friends with the external light-source (read: sync speed). With this setting, the maximum aperture that I could afford was around f/11, else the photograph would have been underexposed, eve with the light source.
Ideally, the light should have been bogo’ed to strictly control the lit area; but since I did not have access to any such fancy equipment (and anyway, photographers have this annoying habit of calling the simplest of things the most complicated names – as if in an attempt to chase off new aspirants like you and me from their field of expertise), I made use of a high-tech ‘light-limiting device (LLD)’ (the unenlightened call it a towel) to cover part of the light such that it only light the area I wanted lit.
The real learning in this session for me, however, was in the angle of the lighting. Look at the image. The coolest bit is the knife, right? Look at the reflection on the upper half of the blade. It’s actually reflecting back the light-source into the camera; this is called the specular highlight. If the light source had been bare, this specular highlight would have been a lot sharper and intense, possibly blowing out that region of the image. But since I’d actually placed another high-tech LLD (an A4 sheet) in front of the flash, what gets reflected back is a clean, lit surface. So, in a way, you are not just lighting the subject, but also giving it something bright and uniform to reflect back to the camera. This would be true for any other object that is highly reflecting (read: glass, watches, etc.).
Now, say for instance, you did NOT want a dark background. You want the overall ambient light to be higher, or have something else in the scene that you want lit. In that case, you always have the option of introducing another light-source into your tabletop universe. So, in a way, you’d be lighting the entire scene on two levels: one for the ambient and one for the earth-shatteringly cool reflection off your knife.
Once we have the basics of controlling specular highlights in place, the potential is unending (that is, until your wife is back, anyway). For inspiration, take a look at Mingthein’s gallery of watch photography. In this image, for instance, the photographer has used specular highlight to light the edge of the wrist-watch, introducing a rather cool effect!
Photography Hobbyists of the world (particularly those whose friends & family are acting pricey) Unite!
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Comments ( 5 )
Let’s Do it on the Table | rOllon…
A very entertaining and interesting post on creative tabletop photography. The writer takes us through a session, complete with light-setup, and shoot. Written in a very light and entertaining vein, it teaches, makes you laugh and inspires……
photographyVoter.com added these pithy words on Oct 10 08 at 1:33 pm
very noble of you to share these ideas!!
thanks!
amar added these pithy words on
Oct 06 08 at
2:31 am
hey..i got an invite from suketu to join rollon. Glad to see that he has a photographer friend (apart from me)!!
I am Bharat, an advertising photographer from Mumbai specialising in high end luxury products, food & beverage and beauty.admire your passion for the craft..way to go!!
Bharat Bhirangi added these pithy words on
Dec 23 08 at
6:30 am
Thanks for the encouragement…do you have an online portfolio?
admin added these pithy words on
Jan 04 09 at
4:13 am
