I received a wonderful gift hamper for Christmas and even before downing the Moet, I realised the black cardboard packaging would make a perfect makeshift black V-flat. Here is my first attempt - wiggling the small battery powered Christmas lights over head for a 4 second exposure. I think it could work quite well .....with more practice!
@teiko it is just a fancy term for a kind of self-standing box to shoot in, usually they are white & act like a light trap to bounce light softly onto the subject. I find working with 'negative light' ( ie absorbing light around the subject) a far more challenging concept.
@jesperani thanks Jennifer! I feel a bit sad that this image really lost a lot of the subtle shadows in the 365 upload process. Some suffer more downgrading than others I guess, and there are worse things in life! :)
@ltodd At first I thought why not just edit the image to create the black bg, but i can see that its more about controlling the light on the subject, which is harder (although not impossible) to emulate with software.
@ethelperry yes Ethel 4 secs & a wiggling light gives a special softness to the light & shadows. You need to put the focus on auto, focus on the nuts & then turn focus to manual.