There is a bit of a story behind this photo. For those that have been following my project for a while, you'll know that i've been concentrating heavily on black and white this year. On Wednesday, one of my Project 365 friends posted a very nice macro shot of her colored pencil set. When I commented on her photo, I laughed and said that my very first thought was of how the pencils would look in black and white. Naturally, I had to take up that challenge. It dawned on me, though, that in black and white it would be impossible to tell that they were originally color pencils and not graphite pencils, so I decided to modify it slightly to crayons. So this shot was definitely inspired by Fran @naturalbeauty and you now know what 24 Crayola Crayons look like in black and white. Now I just need to figure out how to get crayon marks out of a wine tasting glass.
The setup for this shot started with a brown patterned felt pad. I used a dark brown blanket for the background, and the crayons are haphazardly arranged in a wine tasting glass tipped on its side. I used two clamp lights with 40 watt Philips natural light bulbs. One lamp was six feet in front of and to the right of the crayons. The other lamp was a foot behind and to the left of the crayons, angled up to reflect off the ceiling. I used a 12mm extension tube with my 28-70mm lens to get the close-up. For those of you wondering about extension tubes, here's an example using a very thin tube.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I made very minor color sensitivity adjustments, primarily to improve the differentiation between very similar color tones. I then adjusted adaptive exposure, regions, and contrast. A sepia photo filter was added in PSE.
These crayons are almost alive....solid, aiming at something with a clear intention, emerging from a tipped up glass. They scare me a bit. Even more so in smugmug....
I love it in black and white Ron, you're right! I'm swaying towards no monochrome lately... There's something about how simple it makes an image. Kind of makes you look at it closer and notice the textures and tones
@naturalbeauty Thanks, Fran! The fav means a lot. :) I was surprised at the way this came out, actually. I thought it would be fairly bland. You should have seen me trying to put the composition together, though. I really wish I had your talent at putting together still images. That is definitely not my forte!
@eeniemoni Thanks, Moni! The systems programmer in me really wanted to come up with 256 shades of grey, but I just didn't want to buy that many crayons. LOL
@victorypuzzle Thanks, Dominique! It's a bit of a stretch from my normal subjects.
@medusa Thanks, Diana! After you said that, I viewed it full screen on a 27 inch monitor. I may be having nightmares for the next week. Those do look like crayons with a purpose!
@shelldunn Thanks, Michelle! I have to give the credit to Fran, though. It was her pencil shot on Wednesday that gave me this idea. This isn't something I would ever have thought of doing. (But I still haven't gotten all the marks out of my glass! LOL)
@eeniemoni Thanks, Moni! The systems programmer in me really wanted to come up with 256 shades of grey, but I just didn't want to buy that many crayons. LOL
@victorypuzzle Thanks, Dominique! It's a bit of a stretch from my normal subjects.
@medusa Thanks, Diana! After you said that, I viewed it full screen on a 27 inch monitor. I may be having nightmares for the next week. Those do look like crayons with a purpose!