Semi-Sphere

Day 179 of 365

"Semi-Sphere"

 

As is often the case, today I had no idea what I would shoot for my daily posting. I am currently painting my second canvas background, but it is not interesting yet. I looked around the room, and spotted this weathered, gold, ceramic ball. Pretty. I immediately knew that it might do. I needed something interesting on which to place it, so I used this old bed railing which I found in an alley some time ago. Once I lit the background with a snooted speedlight, the colors started to pull the image together. But how to light a golden orb? I was sure I was going to use a large source, as it would be needed to wrap the light around the sphere. A small specular highlight would not do. So, I brought in my large Octabank, and placed it just out of frame to the right of camera. I feathered the light by placing the ball just inside the back edge of the light.That way it would wrap around the ball, and would not pollute my background at all. I then brought in a piece of white foamcore, and just bounced some of the key light back into the camera-left side of the ball. I wanted to retain the black edge on both sides, so I kept the foamcore away from the back edge of the ball. With the foamcore further back, it created a nice, crisp white edge...but that is not what I wanted. Lastly, I tilted the camera a bit to give the image a little...tilt. Oh, just before taking the last couple of images, the Octa fell off my light, crashed down, and broke the sphere. Thanks for rolling by!!

 

#sphere #ball #orb #gold #canon5dmarkIII #tamron70200 #paulcbuffinc #paulcbuffeinstein

Done