Shot in black and white in natural light. Doing my own black and white theme for the month of April. Going back to class so to speak... My goal for this week is NOT to do "product" photography - I do NOT want my subject to look like it's floating in air on a washed out white background. My goal is to maintain some detail in the background and still keep a good focus on my subject. It's much harder to do than I remembered!
The human eye can see about 30 shades of gray between black and white - forget about the infamous book, and an average RGB computer screen can detect 256 shades of gray which we can't see anyway. How many shades are there really? Only God knows! I did discover that the bigger the black object is - the harder it is to keep detail in the white background while focusing on the black subject.
Again - large black object (my grandmother's crocheted cocktail bag) to focus on makes for lost detail in the white background. Sacrificing some detail in the object provides for some detail in the background. There's a happy medium, but it's not always in the same place (camera settings). Black absorbs light while white reflects it so the story goes - they oppose each other.
This week is turning out to be an interesting re-learning experience for me. This little theme really was an assignment for John Frair's class so many, many, many years ago. God bless him! I would love a do-over in his class if he was still around.
1st week - only shades of gray in natural light - done
2nd week - black on white in natural light
3rd week - black on black in natural light
4th week - white on black in natural light
5th week - white on white in natural light
I love the way we see the details of the bag, both on the handle and the body of the bag. It's almost hyperrealistic because we feel we can grab the bag...Very nicely captured.
@milaniet Thank you, Milanie!
@wakelys Thank you, Susan!
@ryan161 Very kind, Ryan! Thank you.
@ludwigsdiana Thank you, Diana!
@kjarn Thank you, Kathy!