Digital Notions

Sometimes, lighting things from different directions can make for interesting shots. This is a large vase my wife has. I really like the colors and pattern, so I put it on its side and lit it from the inside.

I’ll freely admit that this isn’t really all that spectacular from a photographic perspective. However, this daily photo challenge is supposed to show parts of my life as well. So let me explain!

This evening, I decided I needed to run a quick errand. So I go out to my truck and try to start it. Nothing but a few weak clicks… No headlights, no interior lights, nothing. After charging the battery a bit and some luck, I managed to get it started and proceeded to turn that one errand into a trip to the auto store for a new battery, and dinner out with my wife. Overall, not a bad evening!

With that in mind, headlights are quite exciting to me right now!

I figured that I’d try to find a cooperative model so that I could play with some different lighting options. The USB cord for my card reader doesn’t have much fight in it, and I was able to take shots with multiple different lighting setups without any protest from the “model”.

Lighting for the above shot was done with a strong light camera right slightly in front of the end of the cable. A slightly dimmer light (achieved by moving it away from the lightbox a slight bit) at camera left. I think out of all of them, it was my favorite.

All post processing of these was really simple. In Lightroom, I simply adjusted the blacks slider (black clipping) until the whole background was clipped. This is important as it ensures that any changes to exposure won’t bring back details that I didn’t actually want. I was then able to slightly raise the exposure.

For the left outtake, the lights were moved such that they were slightly behind the cable end. This gave a more dramatic look, which I also like. For the right outtake, I had both lights about even with the cable end.

Which one is your favorite?