THANKSGIVING EXPERIMENT: LIGHT PAINTING PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
Over Thanksgiving I told myself I needed to shoot something, I did not care what. I was looking through petapixel.com (great website for inspiration though I spend altogether too much time there) when I came across an interesting tutorial. Basically the idea was to create beautiful product photography, which often require extensive lighting set up, with just the screen of a tablet or phone. Considering I only had my camera with me and had not even thought to bring a tripod I figured this was the perfect Thanksgiving experiment. I am in this black and white phase right now so I went into this project thinking ahead to converting to black and white. I also knew metal would show light nicely against a dark background so I prowled the house looking for metal objects. Then I shut down all the lights in the room and used my phone screen to light paint the chosen object. It was rather a process of trial and error because it is difficult to replicate the same effect shot-to-shot. Once I had a satisfactory picture I decided to edit on my phone using the excellent VSCO Cam app. Since the project was about simplicity and minimal equipment it made sense to use the most common photo editing device: a phone. Below you can see the results of this fun experiment and leave a comment if you are so inclined!
Military issued compass belonging to my great-grandpa
Random stapler found in Grandpa's house
Cigarette case belonging to a great-uncle
Tooth pick container belonging to an ancestor
Prussian belt buckle brought to the US from Europe
Nail buffer case belonging to a great-aunt