Rose, ribbon and heart

I had some time this morning for following my still-life photo project but the mind was not there at all. I took several objects out of cabinets and saw no usage in them so I put them back, and felt absolutely no inspiration for creating a composition. You know that oppressive silence inhabiting your mind instead of burst of ideas, don’t you? Frankly, that’s where I would have left before.

But isn’t it the reason why we so often don’t get anywhere – because we give up too soon? We expect wonders from the beginning and when they don’t arrive fairly quickly, we don’t persist in the effort?

Yesterday I bought some cut roses to decorate my kitchen so eventually I decided to take one and try some ideas with it. Flowers rarely disappoint… I started with the rose in a small vase and a ribbon positioned in different places, then I added a small wooden heart and finally during procesing I added a texture with a text in it. The effect is subtle but the writing seems to complement the atmosphere of the image nicely.

As you might have noticed, I like simple compositions…

From the technical point of view, I tried two different lenses (70-200 mm versus 16-80 mm), it was very interesting to compare the results. In this case I liked better the results achieved with the telephoto lens, the perspective and relation of the objects in the image looked much more natural.

As for lighting, I tried to direct the softbox light from different angles and distance, with and without a reflective board, and that is science… Well, not rocket science, but it makes you consider what options you have and what result you want to achieve. Quite an adventure.

So eventually – even though it didn’t look so at the beginning – it was an enriching and motivational exercise by which I learned a lot. I even have some ideas for next time, who would have guessed…