The Angry Gardner's 365 Challenge » spiderlight

Day 225 – Whip It

Angrygardner — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:47:38 +0000

Whip it good.

This was a shot I have been planning for quite a while now. It is fairly generic, but I found it difficult to get right with the tools at my disposal (2 SB-600 and a homemade spiderlight)

145mm f/11 1/160s Flashes on the background and the spiderlight on the whisk. I need to figure out how to get the whipped cream to look right on the whisk as well.

What’s whip cream without pie?

Day 145 – One After Another

Angrygardner — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:39:51 +0000

I have been playing with this concept for a while. I wanted both the motion from a “long shutter speed, and the sharpness from a frozen moment in time. This was done using both of my lights the spider light allowed for the movement and the flash froze the movement.

200mm f/22 1/10s

This is another shot that I will have to revisit, but I need to figure out what it is missing (more actually what is there that I need to remove).

Day 111 – Life By Chocolate

Angrygardner — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:38:29 +0000

Death by chocolate makes no sense to me, who wants that? Then again, desert is not my favorite part of the meal. However, if you put out cookies from My Dough Girl I will change my tune. No lie, this lady makes the greatest cookies on the face of the planet. You might of heard of her from her recent troubles with a dough boy corporate bully. As a result of this there will be a name change in the future, but as long as she makes cookies like the Margo and the Vivian (pictured below) I will be going into this cookie nirvana for a long time to come.

50mm f/22 1/60s

Day 88 -Nailed It!

Angrygardner — Sat, 15 May 2010 17:00:32 +0000

I didn’t do much on the shed today all the work done was Nolan. There was an emergency at work (we lost power to the building and the back up generator was iffy). So I dropped my hammer and went into work while Nolan plugged onward. Which was kind of a bummer; you see I love using my nail gun.

I couldn’t decide which of the pictures I liked better so today is a twofer.

Technically, this was taken the next morning after we had raised the last two walls.

Day 85 – I Was Framed

Angrygardner — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:36:30 +0000

It was rainy yesterday so the work moved inside. We (and when I say we I mean Nolan) planned out the rooms downstairs and made a cut list so that we knew exactly what to cut and where each piece went. That was a new concept to me I have always done it onesy twoesy. Which is why it takes me forever.

This picture was fraught with technical challenges highest among them was the lack of strobes. I wanted to freeze the saw blade but with only the one flash the shadows were way to harsh. But using my spider-light to soften the shadows cause the motion to blur. It was not the image that I had envisioned but I think that it is still pretty good. Check out the saw dust kicking off the blade.

Day 26 – Asparagus

Angrygardner — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:07:20 +0000

I love fresh asparagus. This is roasted with tomatoes and prosciutto.

I had high hopes for this picture, but things just didn’t work out the way I saw it. I learned that sometimes food photography hurts culinary sensibilities . This tasted great, but did not photograph well because it looked “over-cooked”. Also the Parmigiana-Reggiono started to melt because the asparagus was so hot coming out of the oven. Don’t get me started on the composition and lighting; I know it was less than ideal. As I have said before that is why there is tomorrow.

Day 17 – Frustration

Angrygardner — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:20:06 +0000

Today was a day of frustration. I really was hoping for an invite to a Food photography clinic; I knew it wouldn’t happen, but I was still bummed out. I deiced that I would cook and shoot deep-fried Twinkies to drowned my sorrows. I ended up leaving work two hours late, and so the timing on every thing was pressed. I ended up burning stuff, couldn’t find things I needed and my idea for the batter was a fail. However, in my brilliancy I invited some friends over and they brought awesome brownies. Those were “electron” (you can’t really call it film, can you) ready.

I really worked for this shot. I had great ambitions, but it just didn’t work the way I wanted. The chocolate wouldn’t work, the raspberry coolie ran, and the brownie kinda became the supporting player. I guess that is why there is a tomorrow. I did kinda like what I did with the lighting, I used the spider light high and directly behind through the paper as a diffuser. Truthfully I wrote this based on the camera image, and when I started looking at it on the screen I actually like the picture. It’s not perfect but it is pretty good. It tasted awesome too!

Day 9 – After

Angrygardner — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:18:40 +0000

Several months ago I went and bought a bunch of “burn-your-face-off” pepper. After sitting in the vinegar mixture since I bought them I finally got around to getting them in bottles. You get a two for one this time I couldn’t decide which was my favorite.

The main lighting is from my spiderlight. On the second picture I also popped my flash on the middle bottle to give a little better glow. I would have liked to to have a better backdrop so I could of had some negative space. I really like the pictures and I love the peppers I tried them on Prime Rib at and it was AWESOME!!

Day 6 – Olive Oil

Angrygardner — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:49:07 +0000

The lighting project I was working on yesterday is done (kinda). I actually have a mock-up and was able to use it. So tonight I decided to use the set up and get a more technical picture. I wanted to get the the effect that you see with a white seamless background and one liquid pouring into another.

I am going to try again, but I am really liking what I got on the first try. It is just white paper and my spider light shining on the paper, and a reflective surface on the opposite side I think it will be better when I have both of the lights ready to go. I would also remove alot of the water droplets on the edge of the glass.