Trying To Stay Creative During The Lock Down; Part IV

Olympus E-M1 Mark II; Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens; 1/3200th sec. @ f/8; ISO 250

While locked down at home, now for six weeks, I'm doing my best to keep busy.  Keeping busy all day, day after day, is certainly challenging.  One thing I'm doing is indoor close-up, macro and still life photography with found objects.  I've never made many of these kinds of images in the past.  The problem for me is that they've been done a million times and I'm not contributing much to the genre.

I've always tried to center my photography around being outdoors, for the most part.  But, locked down, I started looking around the house for what could make interesting subject matter.  This image is like hundreds of others you've seen before, only this one is not done as well.  Still, I'm trying to keep the creative juices flowing.

The set up was simple.  I placed a small table in front of a westward facing window on a day that was sunny.  I placed the Bible on the table positioning it so the shadow of the window frames cast a stylized "cross" onto the page.  I then placed the glasses so they would be backlit, casting a front shadow as well as the direct sun coursing through the glass lenses causing the bifocals to create highlights between the glasses and the camera.  I used my Gitzo tripod, Olympus camera and the Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens.  As I said, pretty simple and straightforward.  Nothing fancy.   You don't need to be elaborate to create an effective setup.

I created a several versions of the image.  I'm really not satisfied with any of them.  Some were edited warmer than others.  I also did a black and white version.  Below is a slightly "warmer" version in which I used Lightroom's Split Toning to warm up mostly the darker tones while leaving the lighter tones just a touch warmer.  As of now, I don't have a preference of one over the other.

A slightly warmer version.  Does it make a difference?  I don't know at this point. (click to enlarge)

The point is we need to continue to keep busy while forced to stay home otherwise we just might go a little daft!  Of course, I can't say that I haven't been a bit daft for years already!  Lol.

Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2020 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.