How I Did It

Cari spent the past eight months drying out five roses tied to a hanger. When they were nice a crispy we put them in a vase and I stole them from her to take some pictures.

I wanted to take some time and try a few different things with light to see what I could get.
Here's the setup I worked with.

I put black poster board on the table and one as a backdrop. I had my flash on a tripod off to the left. Finaly, the secret weapon to this shot, I added a toilet paper tube to the flash and taped off the rest of it. This would give me a spotlight effect across the table. Later, I took some pictures with this same setup and I taped a piece of tissue over the end of the tube. This gave the light a much softer look. I wish I had thought of that sooner.

I took close to 100 photos with this setup. I would adjust the angle I took the shot from, change the height and power of the flash, and rearrange the roses. I was just trying different things to see the results I would get. That's a great thing about digital. It didn't cost me anything but time to experement.

Here's a few results of this shoot.

I had started putting some things away when the new kitty ran into the room. I snatched him up and put him on the poster board. Everytime I would let go of him to take his picture, he would try to jump off the table. This was the best one I got him.

Next I loaded some of my favorites into Lightroom and Photoshop. Here's a few examples of what I came up with. There is also a few shots I put on Flickr last week.