Three Room Shell
This is a shell that we've had weathering in the garden for quite a few years. When I set out to light this I wanted to emphasize the three chambers, I wanted them to be dark, and I wanted hard edged shadows. Since small light sources provide harder light with hard edged shadows than large diffuse light sources, like a soft box, I used just one Strobie 130 fitted with a Rogue Grid (so that I could control where the light went) positioned camera right. I used a small hand mirror to bounce a little light onto the left side of the shell so that the pointy end (a technical scientific term) wouldn't go completely dark. The flash was in manual mode, and was triggered by a Yongnuo RF-603N. I thought that this kind of lighting was well suited for black and white, so I converted it using Nik software's Silver Efex Pro 2.
I also did a color version of this shell, in which I used totally different lighting, which provides an rather different look. I prefer the starker and hard edged black and white version, but everyone has different tastes. You can see that version down below in the comments.
Other black and white pictures that I've taken are in my Black and White album. www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/sets/72157644989606939/
Other sea shells that I've photographed over the years are in my Shell album, if you like this sort of thing.
Three Room Shell
This is a shell that we've had weathering in the garden for quite a few years. When I set out to light this I wanted to emphasize the three chambers, I wanted them to be dark, and I wanted hard edged shadows. Since small light sources provide harder light with hard edged shadows than large diffuse light sources, like a soft box, I used just one Strobie 130 fitted with a Rogue Grid (so that I could control where the light went) positioned camera right. I used a small hand mirror to bounce a little light onto the left side of the shell so that the pointy end (a technical scientific term) wouldn't go completely dark. The flash was in manual mode, and was triggered by a Yongnuo RF-603N. I thought that this kind of lighting was well suited for black and white, so I converted it using Nik software's Silver Efex Pro 2.
I also did a color version of this shell, in which I used totally different lighting, which provides an rather different look. I prefer the starker and hard edged black and white version, but everyone has different tastes. You can see that version down below in the comments.
Other black and white pictures that I've taken are in my Black and White album. www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/sets/72157644989606939/
Other sea shells that I've photographed over the years are in my Shell album, if you like this sort of thing.