UCC Nonpareille, Pearl of the Universe
#macromondays
#Candy
#Lensbaby
The Trekkies among you might remember the episode where Cpt. James Tiberius Kirk and his crew involuntarily swap places with their counterparts from an evil parallel universe where chaos, insanity and illogic rule ("Mirror, Mirror", first broadcasted in 1967). So it might not come as a real surprise to you that there are many more "Mirror Universes". Like the one you can see in my image, into which I was sucked after an unusally high intake of sugar during my quest of finding a nice idea for the "Candy" theme. It's the always colourful, cheery Candyverse, a world fuelled by pure sugar. Depicted in my photo is the UCC's (UCC: United Candy Federation) flagship, the majestic UCC Nonpareille, as it takes up full SOL speed (SOL 22), heading to another mission. Candyverse, of course, has its very own counterpart / parallel universe, the slightly bland Healthyverse.
Actually, the UCC Nonpareille's appearance was pure chance. I had bought three packs of different candies for the theme (strawberry/pepper, passion fruit/chili, and "pebble candies", sugar-coated sweet liquorice candies that look like pebbles).
But while (too) delicious, neither the strawberry nor the passion fruit candies were very photogenic, and the "Candyhenge" stone circle I had made with the pebble candies looked a little boring. I then remembered the bottle of nonpareils which I'd once bought for another MM theme. Nonpareils are certainly the tiniest type of candy that exists, so I thought they'd be well suited for MMs. I thought about forming a classical Cretan circular maze with them. To make things a little easier, I wanted to use a bronze pendant (diameter: 3 cm / 1,18 inches) which is made after one of those classical mazes as template. But when I looked at it I knew it would take ages to put the seemingly simple, but actually not so simple maze shape free-handed. And since it was late, and I needed a photo, I decided to make things even more simple by simply arranging the nonpareils right on the pendant by following the debossed lines on it. And although I had actually focused on the maze shape, all of a sudden the USS Enterprise, or rather its Candyverse counterpart was there, as if it had just emerged from a Warp tunnel – bang!
A funny thing with the MM photos is that in most cases it's either the very first or one of the last images I take for a theme that makes it. This is the second to last image, taken last night, handheld and with the Lensbaby SOL 22 which I'd equipped with the 10 mm extension tube. The red light reflections were created by using a translucent, red raspberry lollipop as colour filter (after all, we are in Candyverse). Since the Lensbaby created a kind of motion blur, I thought I'd highlight that effect by adding a texture to it that would look like star trails right in the moment the starship reaches its maximum speed. The "Drizzle left" weather texture in ON1 did the trick :) Other than that I've only done minimal processing steps in DXO (mainly sharpening and denoising) and in Analog Efex.
HMM, Everyone, have a nice week ahead!
P.S. I'm trying to catch up with you tonight!
UCC Nonpareille, Pearl of the Universe
#macromondays
#Candy
#Lensbaby
The Trekkies among you might remember the episode where Cpt. James Tiberius Kirk and his crew involuntarily swap places with their counterparts from an evil parallel universe where chaos, insanity and illogic rule ("Mirror, Mirror", first broadcasted in 1967). So it might not come as a real surprise to you that there are many more "Mirror Universes". Like the one you can see in my image, into which I was sucked after an unusally high intake of sugar during my quest of finding a nice idea for the "Candy" theme. It's the always colourful, cheery Candyverse, a world fuelled by pure sugar. Depicted in my photo is the UCC's (UCC: United Candy Federation) flagship, the majestic UCC Nonpareille, as it takes up full SOL speed (SOL 22), heading to another mission. Candyverse, of course, has its very own counterpart / parallel universe, the slightly bland Healthyverse.
Actually, the UCC Nonpareille's appearance was pure chance. I had bought three packs of different candies for the theme (strawberry/pepper, passion fruit/chili, and "pebble candies", sugar-coated sweet liquorice candies that look like pebbles).
But while (too) delicious, neither the strawberry nor the passion fruit candies were very photogenic, and the "Candyhenge" stone circle I had made with the pebble candies looked a little boring. I then remembered the bottle of nonpareils which I'd once bought for another MM theme. Nonpareils are certainly the tiniest type of candy that exists, so I thought they'd be well suited for MMs. I thought about forming a classical Cretan circular maze with them. To make things a little easier, I wanted to use a bronze pendant (diameter: 3 cm / 1,18 inches) which is made after one of those classical mazes as template. But when I looked at it I knew it would take ages to put the seemingly simple, but actually not so simple maze shape free-handed. And since it was late, and I needed a photo, I decided to make things even more simple by simply arranging the nonpareils right on the pendant by following the debossed lines on it. And although I had actually focused on the maze shape, all of a sudden the USS Enterprise, or rather its Candyverse counterpart was there, as if it had just emerged from a Warp tunnel – bang!
A funny thing with the MM photos is that in most cases it's either the very first or one of the last images I take for a theme that makes it. This is the second to last image, taken last night, handheld and with the Lensbaby SOL 22 which I'd equipped with the 10 mm extension tube. The red light reflections were created by using a translucent, red raspberry lollipop as colour filter (after all, we are in Candyverse). Since the Lensbaby created a kind of motion blur, I thought I'd highlight that effect by adding a texture to it that would look like star trails right in the moment the starship reaches its maximum speed. The "Drizzle left" weather texture in ON1 did the trick :) Other than that I've only done minimal processing steps in DXO (mainly sharpening and denoising) and in Analog Efex.
HMM, Everyone, have a nice week ahead!
P.S. I'm trying to catch up with you tonight!