Study in Light

One day, I was playing with light. I wanted to get a look that vaguely resembled the old European masters in terms of their lighting. Thinking of ...what, a Vermeer?

It was a simple composition: a basket of vegetables. I wanted to show the color, the texture, and the interplay of all of them. This is what I came up with:



To do this, I decided to use a single lighting source (in this case, a single strobe with a colored gel), using barn doors and a honeycomb to give the light a directional feel.

It's an image that brings me pleasure. It's has just the feel I was looking for: the shapes play well off one another; the handle of the basket draws the composition together, and even the shadow of the handle falling across the vegetables adds a little depth. Putting a yellow gel on the strobe gave it a more timeless feel.

I'm going to have to play with this type of composition some more.

To this day, this is one of my favorite photos.