Still photography | Ring

Still life or still photography is very easy photographic field. Unlike other areas of photography, it gives more control to photographer. You can control the light. You have enough time to prepare. If you fail to get what you like, you can try more shots. If you do wild photography, you have limited control. You can no control on the object, light, direction, etc.

In the image, you can see a ring with a synthetic gemstone. It was placed on a light green folder to get a nice background since the main object’s color is maroon. Purposely, shallow depth of field was used. Therefore, you cannot see clear visibility of the ring and its frame. Main aim was to get the image of gemstone in blurry background, and f/4 aperture was enough to blur the background. In addition, Reynox macroscopic lens (model M-250) was used. Macroscopic lens added more DoF. In-built flash was set to -2 in order to avoid harsh light and reflection on the stone.

Camera settings:

• Aperture size: f/4
• Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec.
• ISO: 200
• Focal length: 55mm
• Flash: Yes
• Macro lens: Reynox 250

Main four colors in this image

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Food photography | Fruits

Food photography is an art in photographic field. Some people may think that food photography means cooked food or human made/ prepared meal. Actually, it means all things that can be eatable items including fruits.

Food photography | Fruits

In this picture, you can see hedge boxwood fruits (Drypetes sepiaria). It is crimson color small fruits and dark green glossy leaves. This is eatable fruits, but not much available in markets. Trees are not grown in gardens or farms. It grows in forests. Also, it is seasonal fruit. Therefore, it is very hard find fresh fruits, except in a few local markets.

The image is taken by unprepared method, and it is not studio shot. During a tour in a forest, I was able to plug some fresh fruits. So, I placed some leaves and fruits on a white paper and then clicked. It was not quite sharp, but I was happy to get good picture of rare fruit. Crimson color fruits with dark green leaves in a white background are plus point on this image.

Camera settings:

• Aperture size: f/5.6
• Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec.
• ISO: 200
• Focal length: 33mm

Main four colors in this image

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Rose Color

Flowers are always beautiful. Almost everyone likes them. Rose is queen among thousands of flowers. It has so many colors, size, shape, odor, etc. When it comes to pink color, it is most female’s favorite color. Pink rose is ideal for women. Sometimes, people use the name rose for indicating the color pink. Simply you could hear “rose color”. So, you could image the connection between rose flower and pink color.

Rose color aka pink color

The image is captured in daylight. Pink, off white, green and black are most highlighted colors in the picture. The black background came from shadow while the object was in direct sunlight. Therefore, I was able to use natural background.

Camera settings:
Aperture size: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Focal length: 250 mm
Flash: No

Main four colors in this image:

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Candle in the wind

Do you recognize this title? Of course, many of you could remember. This is title of a famous song that sung by Elton John. The song lyrics were altered by Elton John and Bernie Taupin to honor Princess Diana with the famous line Goodbye England’s rose. But it was originally written in 1973 to honor of Marilyn Monroe. Time to time, the lyrics and music were flavored by various artists.  This is a story of the original title.

Candle in the wind

Candle with flame is always beautiful. Many photographers have taken beautiful shots and you could find plenty of images in the internet. I wanted to try candle with flame, but I wanted to bring the flame that should reflect the wind. If I say in simple words, I wanted to capture “candle in the wind”.


Therefore, I made a setup. I placed the candle in an open space where I was careful with background that flash should not reach background object. If so, I could turn background as black, and I don’t need to find black screen. By the way, it was night. There was slow wind and it was ok for flame to bend a little. I used flash in order to bring the candle visible, but limited aperture, shutter speed and ISO as given below. I took several shots (as always) until I got nice flame that reflected the wind. In this image, I was concern about rule of thirds and lead room.

I am happy with the result. However, I would say a suggestion if you try same shot. It is better to use a color candle instead of white. Black background and white candle give a black and white image feeling, except the flame. I tried coloring the candle in Photoshop through selective color techniques, and it was quite nice. Green, purple, red colors were returned nice image.

Camera settings:

• Aperture size: f/5.6
• Shutter Speed: 1/60
• ISO: 400
• Focal length: 55mm
• Flash: Yes

Black cat

Black cat is not like other cats. It gets much attention than other cats due to its color. How to utilize its specialty in photography? A suitable background could be ideal. However, I have taken this image without background. I used eyes as object and face as background. It is a kind of framing technique.

Black cat 

Without whole body, anyone can tell it is a cat. Therefore, I was not worry about background. I just frame its face. But I limited to frame on eyes, not ear or nose. Green eyes and black surrounding gives a better image. Unfortunately, only one eye is in focus. It was very quick capture. If you have opportunity to try this idea, never forget to focus both eyes.

Photographing smoking stick

Photographing smoking stick is challenge. I tried a simple method and would like to share with you. I used DSLR with kit lens (18-55 mm). I did not use any materials for background. The background was complete dark night. There was space about 50 meters where camera’s inbuilt flash cannot reach.

Photographing smoking stick

The wind was not strong. Therefore, I could be able to control the smoke by manual blow. I took about 15 shots and satisfy by the above result. The camera settings were as follows:

• Aperture: f/4.5
• Shutter speed:  1/60
• ISO: 200
• Focal length: 36mm
• Flash: On

You could try for Photographing smoking stick and get better results. If you try at studio or better setup, you could get better result. Appearance of burning fire (red color) would be an additional result, and it would make image as live.