June 02nd, 2021

Although there were plenty of useful, practical and purposeful things I could have done this afternoon (there always are), instead I spent a few hours experimenting with my camera.  I feel like I've gotten to a point where I'm half way decent out in the forest taking pictures of the kind of nature that holds still so I can capture it. At least most of the time.

Taking pictures inside, however,  is an entirely different kettle of fish. Or in this case, blueberries.   Lighting is the trickiest part.  I had to wait 'til afternoon to get the pretty golden light in the kitchen window to even begin.  Well to be honest I did try to take some photos in the morning and they all came out way too dark.  Crap natural light in the morning.  See?  And I edited in as much light as possible. Still very dark cherries.  Much darker than in real life.

I knew I would use the kitchen for this experiment. Partly just because I love my kitchen.  Partly because it has such pretty light in the afternoon. But mostly because, as I walked from room to room saying, "Hmmmm" to myself a lot, I kept returning to the kitchen in the end.  So I guess, at least for today, I was following my instincts.

Why did I choose fruits for this photo experiment?  Well, for one thing, fruits hold still.  I find that very helpful.  Also fruits are pretty.  Just on their own they are photogenic.  The question was, how can I maximize those inherent good looks.

So I tried different fruits and different containers:

And sometimes no containers at all:

I used different towels underneath the containers and sometimes no towels at all:

Different light from different angles

 And in the end, while I have a long way to go when it comes to any kind of photography and especially Inside camera work, I feel like I learned a lot today.  Just playing around, experimenting, trying this 'n' that.  I spent a great deal of time standing in front of my cabients looking inside and saying, Hmmmmm to myself.  Would this work? Would that be a better choice?  Should I try this?  Why not that?  

It was fun to stretch, fun to try, and my goodness I do love digital photography where anything I don't like just gets deleted!  It has taken me a lifetime to learn to not be afraid of failure.  It was that fear of failure which made me reluctant to try anything new and different for far too long.   What a shame.

 You know, years ago, I  had a philosophy professor who would frequently say, "A hundred years from now,  who will know the difference?"  He was right.  No matter how badly a photography experiment goes awry,  100 years from right now, nobody will know or care.  So why not go for it.

I once had a wonderful boss named Susan who would quote Norman Vincent Peale to me. "Go ahead and shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you will land among the stars".  How wonderful!  And how very odd that while I remembered those two things, I rarely put them into play until recently.   

I am enjoying my photography experiments and I'm not at all concerned about any failures.

It was not a very productive afternoon as far as getting things on the gotta-do list done, but I learned, I had fun and in the end, it was also delicious :)