Set up on dining room table.
Frame and focus.
Turn off room lights.
start exposure, and turn on flashlight pretending to use light as a paint brush to "color" the pears.
switch off flashlight, and expose remaining time in darkness.
Rotate, crop, slight levels in the background only to make darkness a tad deeper. Boost saturation after inverse selection to improve color of pears. Spot edit pears to mute a bad reflection and to eliminate the seams of the fake pears.
Resize, sharpen.
Fun. :)
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I find this a real work of art. Beautiful tones. Thanks for sharing your technique. Reminds me very much of a Rembrandt painting. Looking forward to seeing more.
Thanks to all who commented. I feel these comments were all useful and taught me more about this image and this technique.
I have posted two versions per the comments rec'd here at
DPCPrints.
Excellent lighting on the pears. Would like the plate (?) to have a bit more light as it would add to the composition by giving my eye more in the center/left of the shot (as it is it makes the farthest left pear look cut in an odd way).
Very soft lighting makes this very moody. I like how you arranged the pears making colors gradute from yellow to orange. Very nice touch. Reflections on the wooden table is also very good. Maybe a tiny crop at the top. Kind of feels a little uneven and unbalance. "10"
Nice tones on the pears and good lighting. I find the grain of the wood a bit distracting...maybe an older, duller wood or a paper bag would have worked better?
Perfect example of painting with light on a classic still life theme. I like it just the way it is, but I wonder what it would look like if the table was an old peice of barn wood, with a nice texture. Good stuff :)
This is such a fantastic still life, I wish I'd seen it in that challenge a few weeks back. The lighting is perfect as is the placement of the fruit. This is a picture I can see framed and hanging in my kitchen or dining room. I think you should definitely consider making it available for purchase after the challenge. Good luck.
Another good fruit shot. This time not having the fruit shiny has really worked. The only part I find disruptive is the horizontal dark line where the reflections are. I prefer it cropped right up to that and the black area at the top really gives it "lift"
But I will copy in some text I have added to a few other pictures in this category
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My only concern is, as you may have guessed from the amount of discussion on the forum re "painting with light" is whether it is "painting with light". It is not obviously so.
Having been lucky enough to judge what is now a few hundred competitions in the last 30 years I feel I should say the first thing that happens is that they are sorted and any that do not immediatly seem to fit the category are dumped (hard but a fact). This is why so many competitions also run an "open category". Your picture, as impressive as it is, would, I feel have been rejected at this stage. "Painting with Light" has a fairly tight definition in photography but still allows a lot of lattitude for creativity.
I suspect that your scores may not reflect what the picture is worth which is a great shame. I believe if I was judging in another category I would have marked it a 9.
I do hope you understand my reasons for marking it down
David
This is lovely to look at. It seems as if the pears are glowing, that they are the source of the light. A wonderful result using the effect called for. I like the composition. I'm guessing some will say they think there is too much black at the top, but I think that blackness makes the pears seem all the more glowing, and gives a feeling of anticipation - what might the light shine on next?
Good title, the lighting is fitting. Beautiful shot. I do wonder about the reflection in front of the pears. It's a bit distracting? Well done, lovely work.
Very neat still life. Yes, it's remniscent of an old master's painting with this lighting - excellent. The long I look at it, the better I like it. I might remove a bit of the top - I'm not seeing the whole image on my screen, but I like what I see.
Absolutely beautiful. Only 1 tiny quibble - the strong shadows detract somewhat. I know that with a single, moving light source, it's difficult to avoid shadows. 8
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