Obsession, Passion, and Addiction

That was the theme this week in the Macro Mondays group on Flickr. Dianne came to mind immediately. I worked that into a triptych shown below. I have to work on the eye photo technique, as there is quite the lighting reflection in the eye. I really like the hand hold macro.



For the other shot I went with wine corks to fit the theme. I used a combination of synthetic and cork, red wine stained and not. I played around with a few different arrangements before I came up with a composition I liked. The lighting also took some time to figure out. The main light was a flash with a grid (to diffuse the light a bit) from high left. To break up the shadow from that light, I used a softbox on the left. That still left some harsh shadows and the undersides were dark. I placed the corks on a white, opaque sheet of craft plastic supported on a piece of glass raised above the table. Underneath I placed a mirror on the table and bounced a flash off the mirror to illuminate the corks from the bottom. It makes the support whiter, lightens the shadows even more, and illuminates the undersides of the corks. I love that trick.