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Butter and eggs
I’m way behind with my Be-still-52 assignments but just before we went on holiday, I managed to fulfil an assignment asking us to create an image based on the prompt of “butter and eggs” and I took a series of photos. Before throwing myself into processing our holiday photos I wanted to complete that unfinished work and here I am with two final images I liked best. They are a bit different in several regards but as you can see, I used the same fried egg for creating them. Only one egg actually, it dawned on me much later that there were “eggs” in the prompt so one must do…
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Four props to be composed
Another one from Kim Klassen’s assignments in the Be still 52 project was to take the following four things and make a photo with them: a loaf of bread * linen * twine * scissors Any necessary additional props could have been used. I decided to keep it simple and added just a chopping board and a piece of paper to wind the twine onto in some photos. Also, I decided to match the colour of the scissors I had chosen with the colour of the dish towel to limit the number of colours in the image and simplify the scene. As many times before with this kind of photos,…
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Wreath
Last Sunday Catholic church celebrated a “Celebration of flesh and blood of the Lord” which is a celebration related to Eucharist. On this occasion we always get a little wreath made of fresh green leaves in the local church and though I actually need to ask what it symbolises, I love its structure and freshness. It inspired me this year to try and take a few photos with it, these are the ones I liked best. As the wreath actually gets dry quite quickly, I’m pleased I’ll have something to look at and remember. The freshness, the feelings, the spiritual mood. There is no need to explain what “Bible” means…
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Organic
Kim Klassen asked us in one of her Be still 52 lessons what we think of when we hear the word “organic” and I thought of opening an English dictionary to find out the exact interpretation as the Czech and English meaning might not have been the same… When I read the following definition… organic – (of food, farming methods, etc.) produced or practised without using artificial chemicalsorganic cheese/vegetables/wine, etc. an organic farmer/gardener organic farming/horticulture …I knew right away I’d love to shoot cheese. I’ve chosen Gouda with herbs which we buy in a specialised shop from time to time. It’s a bit more expensive but truly delicious. You can…
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Laundry time
I’ve already mentioned the task we got in the Be still 52 course, to try and capture quiet non-stylised real-life moments. We even got a few prompts to help us focus on a particular topic, one of them being “Laundry Time”. Well, there are many possibilities to capture that and I went for shooting our washed towels, dish towels and tablecloths hanging on the washing lines in our garden. Nothing was specifically arranged for the photo and I count this as a still life photo though as you can see, the pieces were moving in a breeze… The first photo is just basically adjusted, the other two images are further…
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Milk and cookies
How much fun do you think you would have shooting milk and cookies? When I read that assignment in the Be still 52 course I’m participating in and saw the images Kim created, I felt eager to give it a try. So many possibilities… I decided to arrange my props outside, as the morning light was so nice, and also I decided to add lilacs into the background as they were in full bloom all around and were complementing nicely the cookies I bought for this occasion. I tried different depth of field, different perspectives, cookies whole and partly eaten… and eventually also a different format of the final images.…
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Nature in my garden
Another task to be accomplished in the “Be still 52” course was to take a walk and find some props provided by nature along the way. I didn’t make it to the woods but I took scissors and a bowl and headed for our garden to find some nature beauty there. My garden didn’t disappoint me and I gathered some branches, flowers, bark and pebbles for my photography. I even found an old wooden surface in the yard and an old ugly board which made a great background so this time I was shooting outside, in the shadow of our old barn. I created several versions and modifications with the…
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Easter pastels
In the last week’s lesson of “Be still 52” Kim suggested that we might capture some pretty pastels inspired by spring and Easter and experiment with backlighting and focus. When I read that assignment I felt somewhat uncomfortable because neither pastels are something you can find abundant in my household nor the soft-pastel style is something I feel like creating. Also, I haven’t been experimenting yet with the backlighting, which makes it quite difficult to get the right exposure as the light often burns background part(s) of the photo while it leaves dark shadows on your subjects. Nevertheless, I accepted the challenge and gave it a try, that’s why I joined…
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Orchids
This time, I used two of my orchids for creating my images. Orchids are beautiful and elegant flowers, quite popular these days as it is so easy to grow them. 20 years ago my schoolmate’s father pursued a hobby of growing orchids in little greenhouses he had constructed at home and every grown orchid meant great success. Nowadays there are hybrids of various colours, shapes and sizes which you can buy even in supermarkets and which don’t need any special care… I’m quite happy about that! Here is the final image #1… and its processed original: And here is the final image #2… and its processed original: I took the…
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Nested balls
No long stories today, just the final image, the processed original …and a few words. I wouldn’t have believed how much different the image would look when taken from different angles. I took quite a few versions of the balls and just once tilted the camera in such a way that the perspective became slightly distorted. That is the photo you can see here as that perspective has become my favourite. I used kk_breathe preset (provided by Kim Klassen in her Be still 52 course) in processing the final image in Lightroom and tweaked it a bit to suit the photo better.
